*3.2. Common Characteristics of Analyzed Thunderstorms*

This subsection focuses on results related tall thunderstorms in the dataset (Table 3). It shows their common (different) features and compares them with recent knowledge on lightning processes. Our intention was to compare NL with FL, when clouds were present above the observatory. Therefore, in the statistical evaluation, we used data from only those gates, where Hclass identified at least one hydrometeor species.

**Figure 7.** Doppler spectrum width (σ [m/s]) during the thunderstorm on 10 June 2019 from 20 to 24 h UTC at the Milešovka observatory. Note that the color bar is in logarithmic scale and that y-axis (z [m]) displays the height in meters above the cloud radar situated at an elevation of 837 m a.s.l.

Figure 8 summarizes the results throughout the analyzed thunderstorms at the Milešovka observatory. It depicts radar-derived quantities for NL discharges compared to that for FL discharges. It clearly shows that on average, hail, rain and graupel occurred in lower gates more frequently during NL as compared to FL. For FL, rain and graupel were almost not detected at all. For NL, hail concentration was higher at an elevation of 2000 to 2500 m above ground. This is the level which roughly corresponds to the melting layer (Figure 4). Rain concentration was higher at lower elevations, at 1800 m approximately. Thereby, it can be suggested that the closer the lightning, the higher the concentration of rain and hail. This agrees with our previous results based on 10 thunderstorms [45].

In addition, Figure 8 displays the results of AV for NL vs. FL. It shows that in the case of NL, the downward motion of the air substantially prevails at lower altitudes; from the ground to 1000 m and from 2000 to 3000 m. The layer between 1000 and 2000 m above ground is characterized by fluctuations in AV, which can be related to an interchange of up- and downdrafts. Updrafts mostly dominate the elevation from 3000 m upwards. Slow updrafts are typical for very upper vertical levels (above 9500 m).

Overall, AV seems to be quite low, which is caused by averaging. The variability in AV among gates seems high for NL. This is caused by much lower number of NL discharges (990) as compared to FL discharges (171,754), as shown in Figure 9. Concerning FL, AV does not fluctuate much on average between neighboring gates, which is due to large number of processed data. Figure 8 also shows that for FL, downward motion prevails from the ground up to 3000 m, while upward motion dominates the layers above 3000 m on average.

**Figure 8.** Vertical profile of the percentage ratio of the occurrence of hydrometeors (r [−]) during analyzed thunderstorms for: NL discharges (left panel) and far-lightning (FL) discharges (middle panel). Right panel depicts the vertical profile of air velocity (AV) oriented upwards from the cloud radar during the thunderstorms: red curve displays averages for NL discharges, while blue curve the averages for FL discharges. Note that y-axis (z [m]) represents the height in meters above the cloud radar situated at an elevation of 837 m a.s.l.

**Figure 9.** Number of examined cases of NL (left) and FL (right) with available LDR at gates. Y-axis represents the height [m] above the cloud radar situated at an elevation of 837 m a.s.l.

Taking into account the distance of the lightning from the observatory, we do not know whether the radar measurements took place in the frontal or back side of the thunderstorms or on their lateral sides. The placement within the thunderstorm may lead to diverse directions and values of AV, which can be confirmed by high variability of AV (not depicted). In addition to the uncertainty regarding the localization of measurements with respect to the movement and development of thunderstorms, it should be emphasized that we present results and quantities that are derived indirectly (i.e., not directly measured). Therefore, the results cannot be explicitly verified. However, we can state that

the obtained results are in accordance with the general knowledge about thunderstorms. Therefore, we believe that the technique used to calculate the vertical air velocity and to classify hydrometeors give realistic results.
