The relationship between lightning and hail events in Ohio during June 2008 based on Lightning/2000 software

Patterns of lightning within thunderstorms containing with severe hail (greater than or equal to 0.75”) are examined with Lightning/2000 software in conjunction with a Boltek lightning detector. The software identifies areas of intense lightning and displays information that can be evaluated over a time-frame before, during, and after a severe hail event with informational storm boxes. Over 30 severe hail reports from the Storm Prediction Center during June of 2008 are examined in this fashion using varying lightning strokes (cloud to ground [CG], and inter-cloud [IC] both positive and negative) in a twenty minute time-frame surrounding the report. The analysis seeks to describe a relationship between various parameters (i.e., stroke density, average amplitudes and wavelengths, stroke quantity, and the percentages of certain forms of lightning) and the occurrences of these severe hail events. Based on the relationships studied, we plan to develop a parameter that will categorize hail probability based upon certain triggers within an active thunderstorm and predict hail probabilities in the future.