William Atkins
Saturday, 02 May 2009 20:27
Science -
Climate
Page 1 of 2
Israeli researchers analyzed global weather conditions and found that the worst hurricanes came just one day after the appearance of lightning. Their conclusion could help to better forecast hurricane activity.
Israeli researchers
Colin Price (from the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences at Tel Aviv University) and Mustafa Asfur and Yoav Yair (from the Department of Life and Natural Sciences at The Open University of Israel) wrote their conclusions in the journal
Nature Geoscience.
Their article is entitled “
Maximum hurricane intensity preceded by increase in lightning frequency”. It was published online on April 6, 2009 (doi:10.1038/ngeo477).
They state in their abstract
“Hurricanes are the Earth's most deadly storms, causing tremendous devastation around the globe every year. Forecasters are quite successful in predicting the pathways of hurricanes days in advance, but hurricane intensification is less accurately predicted.”
To better predict hurricane intensity, the researchers decided to analyze how hurricanes evolved with respect to increasing winds and the occurrence and frequency of lightning.
Between 2005 and 2007, the researchers studied hurricane activity—specifically category 4 and 5 hurricanes, the biggest ones—every six hours during the lifetime of 58 hurricanes occurring around the world.
Of these 58 hurricanes, 56 of them showed a strong correlation between lightning activity and wind speed.
They found that
“… in all of these hurricanes, lightning frequency and maximum sustained winds are significantly correlated (mean correlation coefficient of 0.82), where the maximum sustained winds and minimum pressures in hurricanes are preceded by increases in lightning activity approximately one day before the peak winds.” [Abstract]
Specifically, when lightning occurred, the researchers found that the highest winds arrived, on average, about 30 hours later.
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