Advances in Geosciences www.adv-geosci.net 1680-7340 1680-7359 23 10th EGU Plinius Conference on Mediterranean Storms (2008) 2010 10.5194/adgeo-23-87-2010 http://www.adv-geosci.net/23/87/2010/ http://www.adv-geosci.net/23/87/2010/adgeo-23-87-2010.html http://www.adv-geosci.net/23/87/2010/adgeo-23-87-2010.pdf 87 92 2010-08-25 Relationships between lightning and rainfall intensities during rainy events in Cyprus S. Michaelides silas@ucy.ac.cy K. Savvidou K. Nicolaides Meteorological Service, Nicosia, Cyprus The objective of this work is to study the relationship between the number of lightning recorded by a network of lightning detectors and the amount of rainfall recorded by the network of automatic rain gauges, during rainy events in Cyprus. This study aims at revealing possible temporal and spatial "relationships" between rainfall and lightning intensities. The data used are based on the available records of hourly rainfall data and the "associated" lightning data, with respect to both time and space. The search for temporal and spatial relationships between lightning and rainfall is made by considering various time-lags between lightning and rainfall, and by varying the area around the rain gauge which the associated lightning data set refers to. The methodology adopted in this paper is a statistical one and rainy events registered under the European Project "FLASH" are examined herein. Altaratz, O., Levin, Z., Yair, Y., and Ziv, B.: Lightning activity over land and sea on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, Mon. Weather Rev., 131, 2060–2070, 2003. Ezcurra, A., Areitio, J., and Herrero, I.: Relationships between cloud-to-ground lightning and surface rainfall during 1992–1996 in the Spanish Basque Country area, Atmos. Res., 61, 239–250, 2002. Gungle, B. and Krider, E. P.: Cloud-to-ground lightning and surface rainfall in warm-season Florida thunderstorms, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D19203, doi:10.1029/2005JD006802, 2006. Katsanos, D., Lagouvardos, K., Kotroni, V., and Argiriou, A.: Combined analysis of rainfall and lightning data produced by mesoscale systems in the central and eastern Mediterranean, Atmos. Res., 83, 55–63, 2007. Kotroni, V. and Lagouvardos, K.: Lightning occurrence in relation with elevation, terrain slope, and vegetation cover in the Mediterranean, J. Geophys. Res., 113, D21118, doi:10.1029/2008JD010605, 2008. Lagouvardos, K., Kotroni, V., Betz, H.-D., and Schmidt, K.: A comparison of lightning data provided by ZEUS and LINET networks over Western Europe, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 9, 1713–1717, doi:10.5194/nhess-9-1713-2009, 2009. Lang, T. J. and Rutledge, S. A.: Relationships between Convective Storm Kinematics, Precipitation, and Lightning, Mon. Weather Rev., 130, 2492–2506, 2002. Michaelides, S. C., Savvidou, K., Nicolaides, K. A., and Charalambous, M.: In search for relationships between lightning and rainfall with a rectangular grid-box methodology, Adv. Geosci., 20, 51–56, 2009. Morales, C. A., Anagnostou, E. N., Williams, E., and Kriz, J. S.: Evaluation of Peak Current Polarity Retrieved by the ZEUS Long-Range Lightning Monitoring System, IEEE Geosci. Remote S., 4, 32–36, 2007. Piepgrass, M. V. and Krider, E. P.: Lightning and surface rainfall during Florida thunderstorms, J. Geophys. Res., 87, 193–201, 1982. Rivas Soriano, L., de Pablo, F., and García Díez, E.: Relationship between convective precipitation and Cloud-to-Ground lightning in the Iberian Peninsula, Mon. Weather Rev., 129, 2998–3003, 2001. Soula, S. and Chauzy, S.: Some aspects of the correlation between lightning and rain activities in thunderstorms, Atmos. Res., 56, 355–373, 2001. Soula, S., Sauvageot, H., Molinié, G., Mesnard, F., and Chauzy, S.: The CG lightning activity of storm causing a flashflood, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 1181–1184, 1998. Tapia, A. and Smith, J. A.: Estimation of Convective Rainfall from Lightning Observations, J. Appl. Meteorol., 37, 1497–1509, 1998. Uman, M. A.: The Lightning Discharge, Academic Press, 377~pp., 1987.