Lightning characteristics in Eastern Mediterranean thunderstorms during different synoptic systems

Abstract

Thunderstorms activity takes place in the Eastern Mediterranean mainly along the boreal fall and winter seasons during synoptic systems of Red Sea Trough (RST), Red Sea Trough that closed a low over the sea (RST-CL), and Cyprus Low (during fall – FCL and Winter – WCL). In this work we used the Israeli Lightning Location System ground strokes dataset (between October 2004 and December 2010) for studying the lightning strokes properties and their link to the thermodynamic conditions in each synoptic system. It is shown that the lightning activity dominates over sea during WCL and FCL systems (with maximum values of 37 strokes per 25 km 2 day −1 in WCL, and 54 in FCL) and have a dominant component over land during the RST and RST-CL days. The stronger instability (high CAPE values of 621 ± 466 J kg −1) during RST-CL days together with the higher altitude of the clouds' mixed-phase region (3630 ± 316 m) result in higher ground strokes density during this system (compared to all other) but lower fraction of positive ground strokes (3 ± 0.5%). In general the fraction of positive strokes was found to be positively correlated with the wind shear values in the layer between 0 and −25 °C. It increases from the 1.2 ± 1% in early fall to 17 ± 7% in late winter, (during FCL and WCL days) and can be linked to the decrease in the sea surface (and lower troposphere) temperature during those months, due to an impact on the charge centers vertical location. The diurnal cycle in the lightning activity was examined for each synoptic system. During WCL conditions no preferred times were found along the day (as it relates to the timing of frontal systems). During the fall systems (FCL and RST-CL) there is a peak in lightning activity during the morning hours, probably related to the enhanced convection driven by the convergence between the eastern land breeze and the western synoptic winds. The distributions of peak currents in FCL and WCL systems also change from fall to winter and include more strong negative and positive strokes toward the end of the winter.