Lightning activity and tropical cyclone structure
M.S. Permyakov1,2, E.Yu. Potalova1,2, B.M. Shevtsov3, N.V. Cherneva3, R.H. Holzworth4
1V.I. Il'ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute, 43, Baltiyskaya Street, Vladivostok, 690041, Russia
2Far Eastern Federal University, 8, Suhanova St., Vladivostok, 690950, Russia
3Institute of Cosmophysical Research and Radio Wave Propagation of the Far-Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Science, 684034 Kamchatka region, Elizovskiy district, Paratunka, Mirnaya str., 7
4World Wide Lightning Location Network, University of Washington, ESS Box 351310, Johnson Hall Room 70, Seattle, WA 98195-1310, USA
Keywords: tropical cyclones, thunderstorms activity, lightning localization, very low frequency radiation
Abstract
Synoptic and mesoscale weather systems over ocean and seas are often accompanied by lightning activity, which intensity and spatial distribution is modulated by the dynamic structure of these weather systems. Lightning discharges are the sources of electromagnetic radiation in very low frequency range (VLF) and are registered by VLF direction finders. Using the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) the relations of characteristics of lightning fields in the North-Western Pacific Ocean with the characteristics of the fields of meteorological elements of weather formations, estimated by remote sensing data from satellites, are study through examples of tropical cyclones. The technique is illustrated allowing binding parameters of thunderstorm activity (frequency and intensity, spatial distribution of lightning) with the structure of weather systems over the oceans and seas, the intensity and shape of mesoscale structures in these systems, allocated to the fields of the vortex drive wind scatterometers and satellite images in the visible and infrared bands. On the example of separate tropical cyclones (TC) for 2012–2013, the relation of lightning discharge frequency and density in the area of influence of a TC with spatial distribution of driving ocean wind vortex is shown.
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