The evolution of a severe mesoscale convective system: cloud-to- ground/lightning location and storm structure

Abstract

It is shown that the cloud-to-ground flash rate in the convective region is related to the apparent strength of the updraft. Before the storm became a supercell, the lightning strikes, which were relatively infrequent, emanated from the anvil west of the core. When the supercell was producing its first tornado, most lightning strikes occurred around the edge of the most intense core and under the anvil south of the core. As the supercell weakened, ground strikes clustered closer to the core. During the squall-line stage, most cloud-to-ground lightning strikes were found to the rear of the core of the remnants of the supercell, and in the core of the cells to the southwest, which were less mature. -from Authors