Quantitative Analysis of the Turbulent Structure of Convection and its Relation to Thunderstorm Electrical Properties

Previous work has suggested a tie between the electrical and kinematic properties of a thunderstorm. Bruning and MacGorman calculated the energy spectra for an ensemble of lightning flashes and noted the similarities to the expected spectra of turbulent kinetic energy. Lightning energy spectra demonstrate both a 5/3 slope in the inertial subrange and a peak at 10 km, which is similar to what is expected from TKE spectra. This study utilizes TTU Ka-band radar data to create turbulent kinetic energy spectra for specific areas within an RHI scan at .5-1km resolution. Data were collected during the spring of 2015 for the Kinematic Texture and Lightning (KTaL) field experiment, sampling different storm structures to allow for a diverse range of radar scan textures to be analyzed.

The objective of taking these measurements is to examine different storm structures as well as regions of both turbulent and more uniform flow within each storm and see how the spectra compare to the spectra of lightning in the different regions. This experimental design helps to further explore the relation between the properties of the deep convective motions within a thunderstorm and the organization of charge, while serving as a preliminary demonstration of technique.