Lightning Flashes: Detection, Forecasting and Hazards

Dear Colleagues,

Severe storms that usually produce high lightning activity are responsible for hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars of damage annually worldwide. Unlike other hydrometeorological events, these severe storms are randomly distributed over large continental areas affecting populations of any social class. Thus, higher impacts occur on the less favored parts of the population, which are much more vulnerable to losses and deaths. In this context, there is a significant motivation within the scientific community to improve the forecasting techniques of severe storms by using high-resolution numerical models together with high-quality observational data. In particular, the almost real-time detection of lightning activity is important for a wide variety of applications and for the development of new nowcasting techniques. Climatological lightning data are also essential to understand humanity’s influence on the climate and, conversely, how these climate changes can affect the behavior of severe storms in the long term.

Epoch-making advances have been made in recent decades. New state-of-the-art geostationary satellites and high-tech ground-based lightning detection systems are producing high-precision, high-quality, and high-resolution lightning datasets over the whole planet. Promising constellations of low-orbit small-satellites will soon provide observational data with unprecedented quality and accuracy. Quantum computing and new computing architectures have significantly improved the numerical weather prediction models, including artificial intelligence techniques, thus yielding new and exciting insights into the nature of severe storms and how to predict them. Moreover, accessing the impacts of severe storms on the population will help us to understand its vulnerabilities, leading to more effective mitigation and adaptation actions. 

Based on this discussion, we are planning a Special Issue dedicated to multi-disciplinary contributions in all areas related to lightning: detection techniques and/or systems, nowcasting and/or forecasting methods, hazard characterization, severe storm signatures and life cycle development (micro-physics, electrification, thermodynamics, and dynamics).

We welcome contributions of various article types such as original research and reviews.

Dr. Kleber Pinheiro Naccarato
Dr. Ana Paula Paes Dos Santos
Guest Editors

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