Seasonal and Diurnal Variation of Lightning over China with Geostationary Lightning Mapping Imager Observations

Lightning is well recognized as a good indicator of convective precipitation storm. On 11 December 2016, China launched Fengyun-4 (FY4) geostationary satellite that host an advanced Lightning Mapping Imager (LMI) soon after the launch of the first Geostationary Lightning Mapper （GLM） on 19 November 2016 aboard the initial Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) R-series spacecraft. The LMI provides continuous observations of lightning over China and adjacent regions, capturing spatiotemporal variation on unprecedented scales. This study investigates the seasonal and diurnal variation of lightning over China with two years of LMI observations, demonstrating the value of this new technology. Lightning activities will be analyzed and compared with ground-based lightning observations during extreme precipitation storms like convective precipitation, straitiform rainfall storm, tornado and typhoon precipitation in terms of lightning flash area, flash duration, and flash energy. The LMI provides exciting new possibilities with countless new applications expected over the coming decades, particularly in the field of short-term numerical weather prediction of high impact weather events.