Lightning in the eastern Alps 1993-1999, part I: Thunderstorm tracks

Bertram, Ingo; Mayr, Georg J.

doi:10.5194/nhess-4-501-2004

Cited by 29 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…Linder et al (1999) identify the Jura and the northern Alpine rim as regions of genesis for convective cells. However, several studies show that these drift towards adjacent flat areas (Finke and Hauf 1996;Bertram and Mayr 2004), such as, in this case, the Swiss Plateau.…”

Section: Climatologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Automatic threshold and run parameter selection: a climatology for extreme hourly precipitation in Switzerland

Fukutome

Liniger

Süveges

2014

Theor Appl Climatol

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Extreme value analyses of a large number of relatively short time series are in increasing demand in environmental sciences and design. Here, we present an automated procedure for the peaks-over-threshold (POT) approach to extreme value theory and use it to provide a climatology of extreme hourly precipitation in Switzerland. The POT approach fits the generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) to independent exceedances above some high threshold. To guarantee independence, the time series is pruned: exceedances separated by less than a fixed interval called the run parameter are considered a cluster, and all but the cluster maxima are discarded. We propose the automation of an existing graphical method for joint selection of threshold and run parameter. Hourly precipitation is analyzed at 59 stations of the MeteoSwiss observational network over the period 1981-2010. The four seasons are considered separately. When necessary, a simple detrending is applied. Results suggest that unnecessarily large run parameters have adverse effects on the estimation of the GPD parameters. The proposed method yields mean cluster sizes that reflect the seasonal and geographical variation of lag dependence of hourly precipitation. The climatology, as represented by the return level maps and Alpine cross-section, mirror known aspects of the Swiss climate. Unlike for daily precipitation, summer thunderstorm tracks are visible in the seasonal frequency of events, rather than in the amplitude of rare events.

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Section: Climatologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While synoptic systems take a few days to sweep over Switzerland, convective cells have a lifetime extending from 1 h or less for single cells up to 12 h for supercells (Bertram and Mayr 2004). Of course, they are generally not stationary, and a single station may be affected only over a much shorter time.…”

Section: Climatologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic threshold and run parameter selection: a climatology for extreme hourly precipitation in Switzerland

Fukutome

Liniger

Süveges

2014

Theor Appl Climatol

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“…In the case of lightning and thunderstorms suitable predictors could be convective inhibition energy (CIN), convective available potential energy (CAPE), vertical shear of horizontal winds or large scale circulation patterns (e.g. Bertram and Mayr, 2004;Chaudhuri and Middey, 2012). Within the GAM framework non-linear effects and interactions of these predictors can be modelled.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Data from the same lightning location system (LLS) were also analysed to obtain thunderstorm tracks (Bertram and Mayr, 2004). The key finding is that thunderstorms are often initialized at mountains of moderate altitude and propagate towards flat areas afterwards.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-temporal modelling of lightning climatologies for complex terrain

Simon

Umlauf

Zeileis

et al. 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. This study develops methods for estimating lightning climatologies on the day −1 km −2 scale for regions with complex terrain and applies them to summertime observations (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) of the lightning location system ALDIS in the Austrian state of Carinthia in the Eastern Alps.Generalized additive models (GAMs) are used to model both the probability of occurrence and the intensity of lightning. Additive effects are set up for altitude, day of the year (season) and geographical location (longitude/latitude). The performance of the models is verified by 6-fold crossvalidation.The altitude effect of the occurrence model suggests higher probabilities of lightning for locations on higher elevations. The seasonal effect peaks in mid-July. The spatial effect models several local features, but there is a pronounced minimum in the north-west and a clear maximum in the eastern part of Carinthia. The estimated effects of the intensity model reveal similar features, though they are not equal. The main difference is that the spatial effect varies more strongly than the analogous effect of the occurrence model.A major asset of the introduced method is that the resulting climatological information varies smoothly over space, time and altitude. Thus, the climatology is capable of serving as a useful tool in quantitative applications, i.e. risk assessment and weather prediction.

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“…The data are especially interesting for monitoring of severe storms in regions where no or insufficient other high-resolution data are available for observation of deep convection, for example over the Mediterranean Sea (Price et al, 2011;Kohn et al, 2010), in data-sparse areas of the Alps (Bertram and Mayr, 2004), and for tropical cyclones over oceans (Demetriades and Holle, 2006). Because of low detection efficiencies in the areas of interest, these studies are restricted to persistent, long-lived storm types with strong electrical discharges.…”

Section: K Meyer Et Al: Automated Thunderstorm Trackingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated thunderstorm tracking: utilization of three-dimensional lightning and radar data

2013

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This paper presents a new hybrid method for automated thunderstorm observation by tracking and monitoring of electrically charged cells (ec-TRAM). The developed algorithm combines information about intense ground precipitation derived from low-level radar-reflectivity scans with three-dimensionally resolved lightning data, which are provided by the European VLF/LF lightning detection network LINET. Based on the already existing automated radar tracker rad-TRAM (Kober and Tafferner, 2009), the new method li-TRAM identifies and tracks electrically active regions in thunderclouds using lightning data only. The algorithm ec-TRAM uses the output of the two autonomously operating routines rad-TRAM and li-TRAM in order to assess, track, and monitor a more comprehensive picture of thunderstorms. The main motivation of this work is to assess the benefit of three-dimensionally resolved total lightning (TL) information for thunderstorm tracking and monitoring. The focus is laid on the temporal development whereby TL is characterized by an effective in-cloud (IC) and cloud-to-ground (CG) event discrimination. It is found that the algorithms li-TRAM and ec-TRAM are both feasible methods for thunderstorm monitoring with potential for nowcasting. The tracking performance of li-TRAM turns out to be comparable to that of rad-TRAM, a result that strongly encourages utilization of lightning data as independent data source for thunderstorm tracking. It is found that lightning data allow an accurate and close monitoring of storm regions with intense internal dynamics as soon as convection induces electrical activity. A case study shows that the current short-term storm dynamics are clearly reflected in the amount of strokes, change of stroke rates and IC/CG ratio. The hybrid method ec-TRAM outperforms rad-TRAM and li-TRAM regarding reliability and continuous assessment of storm tracks especially in more complexly developing storms, where the use of discharge information contributes to more detailed information about storm stage and storm evolution

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Lightning in the eastern Alps 1993-1999, part I: Thunderstorm tracks

Cited by 29 publications

References 16 publications

Automatic threshold and run parameter selection: a climatology for extreme hourly precipitation in Switzerland

Automatic threshold and run parameter selection: a climatology for extreme hourly precipitation in Switzerland

Spatio-temporal modelling of lightning climatologies for complex terrain

Automated thunderstorm tracking: utilization of three-dimensional lightning and radar data

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