Abstract:
Lightning is a dangerous and deadly hazard, yet it is often underestimated by the public and excluded from severe weather watches and warnings used by the National Weather Service. Previous studies have analyzed the relationship of lightning and storm intensity in relation to severe weather, but none have analyzed this relationship across all storm modes in an area including Northern and Central Alabama. This study attempts to assess the relationship between cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning and storm mode in storm events which occurred on lightning hazard days in Northern and Central Alabama during the years of 2007 to 2011. Storm variables for analysis included lightning flash rate, aspect ratio, total convective area above 20 dBZ, maximum convective area above 40 dBZ, and percent maximum convective area. Results show that lightning flash rates vary by season and storm mode. PCA and Cluster Analysis identified a total of 5 clusters of varying lightning flash rate and convective intensity. The storm mode events include non-summer linear, an anomalous MCS associated with a triple point frontal outflow boundary, summer airmass, non-seasonal weak, and summer MCS/MCC. Information obtained during this thesis has the potential to aid forecasters and emergency managers in Northern and Central Alabama by associating lightning flash rates with storm mode characteristics observed on lightning hazard days.
