Study of the Atmospheric Electrical Activity through Lightning Jump in the central Argentina

MARÍA GABRIELA NICORA; JUAN LUCAS BALI; ELDO E. ÁVILA ; CONSTANZA INÉS VILLAGRÁN ASIARES

Lauderdale, Florida.

Conferencia; 25th International Lightning Detection Conference and 7th International Lightning Meteorology Conference.; 2018

Vaisala

Knowing the rate of atmospheric electrical activity is fundamentally relevant for human life, and for infrastructures, because these events cause major damages of different nature. Although in Argentina there are no solid statistics about injured or killed by lightning, [Nicora et al ,[2013]] made a study about the estimating the annual death rate by lightning, with the importance of this injury for outdoors consistent with international studies [López et al,[1998]; Curran et al. [2000], Chandia Gomez et al, [2011]]In the case of country airports and aerodromes, it is of particular importance on the operation related ramp closures on departing and arriving air traffic and ramp personnel operations in adverse weather conditions. For the protection of aeronautical personnel and operators, a tool for the identification of atmospheric electrical activity in the vicinity of airports is was developed and installed on critical sites to validate the model.The main goal of this project is to have a realistic integrative tool to minimizing the downtime caused by lightning-related ramp closures in order to maximize the efficiency and make some airports personnel safe. Aerorayos is an integrative tool for meteorological information and at the same time has algorithms for risk assessment of lightning strike and information toll to alert the decision makers at airports and aeronautical meteorologists to handle the proper decisions. Many studies have shown that in the north-center zone of Argentina there is high rate of intensive convective systems compared to hail rate, hardy precipitation and extremely events [3]. Satellite evidence, including from TRMM, indicates that the convection in this region is unique in its intense vertical structure, broad horizontal organization, and lightning production.This work presents the first stage of the characterization study of AEA on the region [28?35] S of latitude and [60?70] W of longitude by analysis of WWNN data from January to October 2016 processed with GeoRayos Algorithm. The largest number of electrical discharge was in February (136870). The Lightning Jump threshold detected was 9 rays each 2 minute. The density of rays per area was 〖7*10〗^(-8) lightning km^2. It is shown heat maps belong months with greatest activity registered. In the summer, AEA is concentrated in the west zone of center of Argentina.The system is based on two different methods, Electrical activity in the region near the airports and the atmospheric electric field measured in close proximity. Regarding the electrical activity in the vicinity of the airports, the AeroRayos System has the capacity to integrate information from different detection networks, which will allow manifestations of the electrical activity, in different areas of the electromagnetic spectrum, having a great sensitivity in the detection of discharges.This paper presents the operative results of the evaluation of thunderstorms over the Jorge Newbery airport (AEP) of the City of Buenos Aires for the annual period 2016-2017 in order to have the first statistical data related to this activity and analysis is made for security and efficiency of the operations.To establish the accuracy about Lightning Red Alarm (LRA) over AEP, we compared the METAR (Meteorological Aerodrome Reports) and SPECI (Special meteorological reports) this paper presents some results of this study.