Thunderstorm days over Argentina: Integration between human observations of thunder and the world wide lightning location network lightning data

FIORELA BERTONE; M. GABRIELA NICORA; LUCIANO VIDAL

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY

JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD

Lugar: LOndres; Año: 2022

0899-8418

Storms are one of nature's most dangerous phenomena; therefore, knowing their spatial distribution and evolution over time is of great interest for the protection of society, as well as for climate change adaptation strategies. The measurement of Thunderstorm days (Td) was one of the first tools used to monitor storms. The advent of automatic detection networks on the surface has allowed us to advance in the understanding and characterization of the electrical activityin the atmosphere, locating in real-time electrical discharges and providing information over previously unrecorded regions. This work focuses on the integration of human observations at conventional meteorological stations and the data provided by the WWLLN surface discharge detection network in Argentina. The calibration methodology applied determined a mean humanthunderstorm detection radius of 21 km which allowed the elaboration of isokeraunicmaps for the period 2008–2017 for the region of interest. The spatial distribution of storms yielded the highest values of Td in the Argentine Northwest region with values above 100 Tdyear−1 followed by a relative maximum in the Argentine Northeast with 80 Tdyear−1 and the Sierras de Cordoba with 50 Tdyear−1.