Investigation of thunderstorm characteristics with severe lightning events over NE region of India

Abstract

The north eastern region (NER) of India is among the hotspot regions for thunderstorm events leading to substantial loss of lives and properties every year. A reliable thunderstorm early warning system can prevent these losses. As these events are highly dynamic, prediction becomes equally challenging. Diagnostic studies of such events could provide more understanding of lightning and storms over a region which could then be used as input for the prediction of such events. Improving the efficiency of the prediction of associated meteorological parameters could improve the prediction of thunderstorm. In this study, two thunderstorm events have been identified with high lightning flash counts, using observations from the INSAT-3D satellite and lightning detection sensors. These observations revealed that one of the events was caused by a cloud system that originated elsewhere and travelled over the area of impact while the other event was an isolated convective system that occurred over a small region. The characteristic features of thunderstorms, like vertical wind velocity, cloud ice water content, relative humidity, cloud fraction and radar reflectivity, etc. were simulated using the WRF model. These simulations were validated with the ERA-5 reanalysis data and observations from Radar and satellite data. Validation results suggest that the WRF model could predict these features associated with thunderstorm events quite reliably. The study helped to improve the severe weather warning over NER of India and the stakeholders are trained on effective utilization of such warning.