The European lightning location system EUCLID – Part 1: Performance analysis and validation

Schulz, Wolfgang; Diendorfer, Gerhard; Pédeboy, S.; Poelman, D. R.

doi:10.5194/nhess-16-595-2016

Cited by 175 publications

(159 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

153

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…ALDIS is part of the European cooperation for lightning detection (EUCLID) (Pohjola and Mäkelä, 2013;Schulz et al, 2016), which bundles European efforts in lightning detection. Schulz et al (2016) present an evaluation of the performance of lightning detection in Europe and the Alps by comparison against direct tower observations with respect to detection efficiency, peak current estimation and location accuracy.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-temporal modelling of lightning climatologies for complex terrain

Simon

Umlauf

Zeileis

et al. 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-temporal modelling of lightning climatologies for complex terrain

Simon

Umlauf

Zeileis

et al. 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Data from the lightning information service "BLitz InformationDienst Siemens" (BLIDS), which is part of the EUropean Cooperation for LIghtning Detection network (EUCLID; Schulz et al, 2016;Drüe et al, 2007), were used to ensure that wind measurements were related to thunderstorm events. We considered only the time and location of the lightning, whereas polarity and power information were neglected.…”

Section: Lightning Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical characteristics of convective wind gusts in Germany

Mohr

Kunz

Richter

et al. 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Due to the small-scale and non-stationary nature of the convective wind gusts usually associated with thunderstorms, there is a considerable lack of knowledge regarding their characteristics and statistics. In an effort to remedy this situation, we investigated in this study a set of 110 climate stations of the German Weather Service between 1992 and 2014 to analyze the temporal and spatial distribution, intensity, and occurrence probability of convective gusts.Similar to thunderstorm activity, the frequency of convective gusts decreases gradually from southern to northern Germany. No further spatial structures, such as a relation to orography or climate conditions, can be identified regarding their strength or likelihood. Rather, high wind speeds of above 30 m s −1 can be expected everywhere in Germany with almost similar occurrence probabilities. A comparison of the 20-year return values of convective gusts with those of turbulent gusts demonstrates that the latter have higher frequencies, especially in northern Germany. However, for higher return periods, this effect can be reversed at some stations.The values of the convective gust factors are mainly in a range between 1 and 4 but can even reach values up to 10. Besides the dependency from the averaging time period of the mean wind, the values of the gust factors additionally depend on the event duration and the storm type, respectively.

show abstract

“…In addition, Schulz et al (2016) showed that the LA dropped steadily over the years down to the present LA in the range of 100 m within the majority of the network. Note that in Schulz et al (2016) ground-truth observations are collected in Austria and Belgium, the same regions of the EUCLID network which are studied in this paper.…”

Section: Lightning Location Datamentioning

confidence: 94%

“…To retrieve the latter values, only those strokes that match certain quality criteria such as χ 2 are used in the analysis, which is a measure for the agreement between the different sensor measurements and the semi-major axis (SMA) of the confidence ellipse, and received a correct stroke classification as CG by the central processor. Those strict criteria, as well as temporary sensor outages during the measurements campaign, can impact the DE estimates given in Schulz et al (2016). In addition, Schulz et al (2016) showed that the LA dropped steadily over the years down to the present LA in the range of 100 m within the majority of the network.…”

Section: Lightning Location Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Those observations provide valuable information on the DE, location accuracy and in some cases even the peak current estimates retrieved from an LLS. This is done for instance by examining direct lightning strikes to instrumented towers (Diendorfer et al, 2000a, b;Pavanello et al, 2009;Romero et al, 2011;Schulz et al, 2012Schulz et al, , 2013Cramer and Cummins, 2014;Azadifar et al, 2016) through the use of rocket-triggered lightning (Jerauld et al, 2005;Nag et al, 2011;Mallick et al, 2014a, b, c) and/or by recording lightning strikes with highspeed video and E-field (electric field) measurements in open field (Biagi et al, 2007;Poelman et al, 2013a;Schulz et al, 2016). Although they are the best methods for retrieving robust information of a networks' performance, they are quite labor intensive when used to acquire a large enough dataset for a statistically reliable output.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Analysis of lightning outliers in the EUCLID network

et al. 2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Lightning data as observed by the European Cooperation for Lightning Detection (EUCLID) network are used in combination with radar data to retrieve the temporal and spatial behavior of lightning outliers, i.e., discharges located in a wrong place, over a 5-year period from 2011 to 2016. Cloud-to-ground (CG) stroke and intracloud (IC) pulse data are superimposed on corresponding 5 min radar precipitation fields in two topographically different areas, Belgium and Austria, in order to extract lightning outliers based on the distance between each lightning event and the nearest precipitation. It is shown that the percentage of outliers is sensitive to changes in the network and to the location algorithm itself. The total percentage of outliers for both regions varies over the years between 0.8 and 1.7 % for a distance to the nearest precipitation of 2 km, with an average of approximately 1.2 % in Belgium and Austria. Outside the European summer thunderstorm season, the percentage of outliers tends to increase somewhat. The majority of all the outliers are low peak current events with absolute values falling between 0 and 10 kA. More specifically, positive cloud-toground strokes are more likely to be classified as outliers compared to all other types of discharges. Furthermore, it turns out that the number of sensors participating in locating a lightning discharge is different for outliers versus correctly located events, with outliers having the lowest amount of sensors participating. In addition, it is shown that in most cases the semi-major axis (SMA) assigned to a lightning discharge as a confidence indicator in the location accuracy (LA) is smaller for correctly located events compared to the semimajor axis of outliers.

show abstract

The European lightning location system EUCLID – Part 1: Performance analysis and validation

Cited by 175 publications

References 18 publications

Spatio-temporal modelling of lightning climatologies for complex terrain

Spatio-temporal modelling of lightning climatologies for complex terrain

Statistical characteristics of convective wind gusts in Germany

Analysis of lightning outliers in the EUCLID network

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About