Average diurnal variation of summer lightning over the Florida peninsula.

Abstract

Data derived from a large network of electric field mills have been used to determine the average diurnal variation of lightning in a Florida seacoast environment. They show a peak in lightning activity between the hours of 2000 and 2100 GMT or about 3 hours after local solar noon. When the statistics of lightning are compared with the statistics of thunder on the same days, good agreement is found between the start times and the times of peak activity; however, the thunder stop times tend to lag the lightning by 1 to 2 hours. -from Authors