The Evolution and Extratropical Transition of Tropical Cyclones during the 2017 Hurricane Season from a GLM, ISS LIS, and GPM Perspective

The distribution of lightning with respect to tropical convective precipitation systems has been well established in previous studies, and more recently by the successful Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). However, TRMM did not provide information about precipitation features pole-ward of ±38° latitude. Hence not much is known about the evolution of lightning within extra-tropical cyclones traversing the mid-latitudes, especially its oceans. To facilitate such studies we have combined lightning data from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) onboard GOES-16 and the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) onboard the International Space Station (ISS) together with precipitation features obtained from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission constellation of satellites. We used this lightning-enriched precipitation feature dataset to investigate the lightning and precipitation characteristics of cyclones as they evolved and underwent extratropical transitions in the mid-latitudes during the active 2017 hurricane season. Our presentation will highlight the evolution and transition of Hurricane Harvey, which produced copious amounts of rainfall in southeast Texas, and Hurricanes Irma and Maria, which reached Category 5 strength and ravaged parts of the eastern Caribbean. This study provides a new observationally-based view of the tropical to extra-tropical transition and its impact on lightning production.