1 / 17

Investigating Lightning Cessation at KSC

Investigating Lightning Cessation at KSC. Holly A. Melvin Henry E. Fuelberg Florida State University GOES-R GLM Workshop September 2009. Purpose. Better understand electrical activity at the end of a storm Gain insight into forecasting the last flash of a storm. 20 km. 20 km.

basil
Download Presentation

Investigating Lightning Cessation at KSC

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Investigating Lightning Cessation at KSC Holly A. Melvin Henry E. Fuelberg Florida State University GOES-R GLM Workshop September 2009

  2. Purpose • Better understand electrical activity at the end of a storm • Gain insight into forecasting the last flash of a storm 20 km 20 km Vertical cross-section of 1-min LDAR total lightning source density at 2246 UTC 9 Aug 2005, during the peak rate of core lightning Vertical cross-section of 1-min LDAR total lightning source density at 2326 UTC 9 Aug 2005, the last IC lightning flash of the storm

  3. Methodology • Consolidate LDAR sources into flashes using a modified version of NASA’s flash creation algorithm (Nelson, 2002) • Match CGLSS/NLDN flashes to LDAR flashes using McNamara’s algorithm (2002) • Separate matched flashes into IC sources, CG sources, IC initiation sources, CG initiation sources, and CG strike location data for further analysis • Use WDSS-II software (Lakshmanan et al., 2006) to identify and track storms and their associated lightning and radar characteristics

  4. Storm Cell Tracking • Using the WDSS-II K-Means clustering algorithm: • Identify storms based on VIL density • Set clustering thresholds low enough to track storms through lightning cessation • Clustering small, isolated, weakening cells presents a major challenge! VIL Density and associated storm clusters on 1 Sep 2005

  5. Different Styles of CessationAnalyzed 106 storms

  6. Abrupt Cessation Max dBZ Hail Reports

  7. Time Series of Reflectivityand Source Density

  8. Gradual Cessation

  9. Time Series of Reflectivityand Source Density O O

  10. Outlier O 20 min O

  11. Another Outlier O 9 min O

  12. Trying to Put it all TogetherComposites

  13. Initiation Heights in Normalized Time

  14. Initiation HeightsCG vs IC Flashes CG IC

  15. Multiplicity and Peak Currents Multiplicity Peak Current

  16. Max Reflectivity

  17. Reflectivity Data Being AnalyzedMuch More Work RemainsDetailed Statistical Studies

More Related