A World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) Thunder Hour Climatology

Thunder hours represent both a historic measure of lightning occurrence and a metric of thunderstorm frequency that is comparatively less sensitive to geographic variations in the detection capabilities of a lightning location system. The World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) has monitored global lightning since late 2004, and its stroke density climatologies have been used to investigate interannual, seasonal, intraseasonal, and diurnal variations in lightning occurrence in a wide variety of geographic settings. We now introduce a WWLLN thunder hour climatology calculated from lightning detections from 2013-2023, during which period the number of global WWLLN sensors remained largely consistent. This presentation will introduce the thunder hour methodology, which aligns with other climatologies developed from ground-based lightning networks, and will include highlights of thunder hour variations in a variety of lightning hotspots as well as comparisons with the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) precipitation climatology.