![]() ![]() Lightning strikes are the second leading cause of storm-related deaths in the US after flooding. Once the researchers had a way of representing lightning in climate models, they can run them and see how lightning strikes change as temperatures rise. Time series plot of actual lightning strikes (red line) and study approximation of lightning (blue line) in the US for the year 2011. You can also see that the majority of lightning strikes hit during spring and summer. The graph below shows the comparison between their approximation (blue line) and the lightning strikes (red line) for the year 2011. The approximation matches closely to actual occurrence of lightning, the researchers say. The study approximates lightning in climate models by combining the two factors of rainfall and the amount of energy in the atmosphere, which makes air rise. Lightning is more likely in a warmer world because thunderstorms need warm, rapidly-rising air in order to develop.īut working out how lightning will be affected by climate change is difficult because climate models don’t simulate lightning directly. Four degrees will mean an increase of around a half, meaning over 10 million more lightning strikes per year. So if temperatures rise by two degrees, lightning strikes will increase by almost a quarter. New research, published in Science, suggests that lightning strikes in the US will increase by 12 per cent for every degree of temperature rise, if greenhouse gases continue to be emitted at current levels. Red and orange pixels show more strikes per square kilometer per hour than blue pixels. US Map showing number of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in the year 2011. There are around 25 million lightning strikes in the US every year, mostly on the eastern side of the country. The electricity is generated as water droplets and ice crystals bump into each other as they rise and fall within the cloud. When static electricity builds up in large storm clouds it can discharge as lightning, either extending into the air, within the cloud itself, or striking the Earth’s surface. The study finds the number of strikes could increase by around 50 per cent through the 21st century. Lightning already strikes the US about 25 million times each year, causing dozens of deaths and millions of dollars’ worth of damage from fires. This page will be updated to a more robust version including PIREPs by the end of April.Climate change is likely to increase the number of lightning strikes, according to a study that models the effect of a warmer climate on lighting in the US. ![]() The NWS Radar page and NWS Satellite page also are available. The URL should auto-update with the current settings, allowing for an easy bookmark/favorite. ![]() Īdditional URL parameters include lt (center latitude), ln (center longitude), zm (zoom level, 0-12), nolabel (removes flight category icon ID labels), hidemenu (hides the menu options on the lower left), wide (thicken US state boundaries), county (include US counties and other political boundaries based on zoom level), hidefir (hide FIR boundary), zseareas (add the ZSE ARTCC areas), and start (UTC start date/time, YYYYMMDDhhmm format, AWC data goes back up to 2 days, GLM data up to 5 hours). To expand the radar map, keeping the menus/options above and legend below, click ⟺ (include "&invert" in the URL to reverse the background/text colors). To toggle the lower-left menu visible/hidden, click the ≪ or ≫ button. Left-clicking on the "Speed" area will slow the loop and right-clicking will accelerate the loop, ranging from 0.05 to 5 second interval. When both the flight category and weather are displayed, the flight category icon will be on the inside and the partially-transparent weather color on the outside.Ĭlicking on the map will start/stop the loop. Also, GeoColor images may occasionally miss a frame or two. On the GeoColor satellite images (GOES-West/East cutoff at -114°) the pale bule areas are nighttime areas of lower clouds. The radar, lightning, visible satellite, IR satellite, GeoColor satellite, SIGMETs/CWAs, and flight categories/weather can be toggled on/off. The above loop uses radar and visible/IR satellite data obtained from Aviation Weather Center (AWC), GeoColor satellite data from NOAA NESDIS-STAR, lightning (GLM) data from NOAA nowCOAST, and observations (for flight category and weather) from MesoWest. ![]()
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