The role of convection in determining tropical cyclone genesis in the eastern North Pacific

An abstract submitted to the American meteorological Society's 29th conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, Tucson, AZ, 10-14 May 2010.

ABSTRACT

Recent results using lightning as a proxy for convection show clear differentiation between lightning flash rates of developing and non-developing storms in the eastern North Pacific. With this result we will take a closer look at the importance of the role of convection in the genesis process. We will examine regions within cloud clusters of higher than average convective updrafts which lead to the formation of hot towers which may increase the possibility of certain clusters to develop. Specifically, we will focus on the areas of convective hot towers within the large swath of convective and stratiform clouds to determine the amount of associated electrical activity in these regions of the cluster and the vertical development necessary to produce these increased lightning flash rates. This work is in hopes of determining what conditions are necessary for these intense convective plumes in the eastern North Pacific, and what vertical depths of convection are most likely to produce pre-tropical cyclone convective clusters. Lightning data from the Long-range Lightning Detection Network (LLDN), an extension of the National Lightning Detection Network, is used in combination with infrared satellite imagery from the GOES-East and West satellites in separating the two populations, and then more closely examining developing systems and systems with features closely resembling developing systems.