Climatology of lightning in the Czech Republic

The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI) has utilized lightning data from the Central European Lightning Detection Network (CELDN) since 1999. The CELDN primarily focuses on the detection of cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning but intra-cloud (IC) lightning detection is also available. Lightning detection is used by the CHMI forecasters as an additional source to radar and satellite data for nowcasting of severe storms. Lightning data are also quantitatively used in automatic nowcasting applications. The quality of lightning data can be evaluated using their climatological characteristics. Climatological characteristics are also useful for defining decision thresholds that are valuable for human forecasters as well as for automatic nowcasting applications. The seven-year period from 2002 to 2008, which had relatively even-quality lightning data, was used to calculate the spatial and temporal distributions of lightning. The monthly number of CG strokes varies depending on the season. The highest number of CG strokes occurs during summer, with more than 20days of at least five detected CG strokes on the Czech Republic territory in June and July. The least number of CG stokes occurs in winter, with less than three days per month having at least five detected CG stokes. The mean diurnal distribution of CG strokes peaks between 1500 and 1600 UTC and reaches a minimum between 0500 and 0800 UTC. The average spatial distribution of CG strokes shows sharp local maxima corresponding with the locations of the TV broadcast towers. The average spatial distribution of CG flash density, calculated on a 20×20 km grid, shows the maximum (3.23 flashes km⁻²year⁻¹) in the western part of Czech Republic and the minimum (0.92 flashes km⁻²year⁻¹) in the south-southeast of the Czech Republic. In addition, lightning characteristics related to the identified convective cells, such as distribution of the lightning stroke rates or relation to the radar derived by Vertically Integrated Liquid, are presented.