Performance Evaluation of an Explicit Lightning Forecasting System

In this study, an explicit electrification and lightning parameterization scheme implemented within the Weather Research and Forecasting model (E‐WRF, Fierro et al., , https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR‐D‐12‐00278.1) is evaluated against selected lightning diagnostic schemes. Convection‐permitting simulati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of geophysical research. Atmospheres 2018-05, Vol.123 (10), p.5130-5148
Main Authors: Dafis, S., Fierro, A., Giannaros, T. M., Kotroni, V., Lagouvardos, K., Mansell, E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case studies
Cold season
Computer applications
Computer simulation
Convection
Detection
Diagnostic systems
Electrification
False alarms
Fields
Geophysics
high‐impact weather
Lightning
Lightning activity
Lightning detection
lightning forecasting
Mathematical models
Parameterization
Performance evaluation
Rain
Rainfall
Residential density
Statistical methods
Statistics
verification
Warm seasons
Weather forecasting
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Summary:In this study, an explicit electrification and lightning parameterization scheme implemented within the Weather Research and Forecasting model (E‐WRF, Fierro et al., , https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR‐D‐12‐00278.1) is evaluated against selected lightning diagnostic schemes. Convection‐permitting simulations of 10 high‐impact weather case studies over Greece are compared against lightning observations from the ZEUS ground‐based lightning detection network. The model's ability to accurately simulate these convective events is first evaluated through statistical scores of accumulated rainfall. The simulated flash origin density (FOD) fields are then assessed using statistical neighborhood methods. Overall, the simulated FOD fields have good agreement with the observations. Most of the lightning activity over the sea, however, is generally poorly forecasted. Lightning‐producing events over the sea near Greece mainly occur during the cold season. Thus, lightning forecast with E‐WRF appear to have better skill during the warm season. The simulated areal coverage of FOD using E‐WRF also reduces the false alarms of lightning activity both over land and sea compared to a well‐documented diagnostic lightning prediction scheme. Given its relatively low computational cost, these results support the potential use of E‐WRF for real‐time lightning predictions at convection‐allowing scales. Key Points Lightning and precipitation verification procedures Explicit lightning forecasting outperforms empirically derived diagnostics
ISSN:2169-897X
2169-8996
DOI:10.1029/2017JD027930