The relationship of in-cloud convective turbulence to total lightning

Convective turbulence has aviation safety, economic and capacity impacts. Over land, radar observations are available to measure convective turbulence, but these are not available over oceans and remote areas where radars are sparse, blocked by terrain or nonexistent. Total lightning has been shown to correlate well with storm dynamics and will be measured globally when planned lightning mapper instruments are implemented on GOES-R and Meteosat satellites. Thus, we seek to investigate the relationship between in-cloud convective turbulence and total lightning measurements. The ultimate goal of this research is to investigate the possible skill of total lightning as an indicator of convective turbulence.

Over the continental United States, the NEXRAD Turbulence Detection Algorithm (NTDA) provides 5 minute, 3D grids of in-cloud Eddy Dissipation Rate (EDR), a quantitative measure of turbulence. We compare the temporal and spatial relationship of 2D and 3D total lightning activity measured by the Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) system at White Sands Missile Range with NTDA EDR data for the same region. Both case study and statistical results suggest that total lightning is related to convective turbulence, and it may be possible to use geostationary lightning mapper data to enhance the diagnosis of hazardous turbulence.