Diurnal patterns in lightning activity over South America

Abstract

Satellite observations of lightning flash distribution data are used to examine the diurnal cycle of lightning activity over the tropical and subtropical regions of South America. A harmonic analysis is used to study the spatial variations in the peak and strength of diurnal lightning activity across this area. Results show that in the northern and central regions of South America, the times of maxima in lightning activity was concentrated from late afternoon to evening hours (between 14:00 and 18:00 local time), which may be associated with the peaking of the local convective activity connected with heating of the surface caused by daytime insolation. In subtropical South America, particularly in the area limited by 25°S, 35°S of latitude and 70°W, 50°W of longitude, the time of maximum lightning activity was shifted to nocturnal hours, extending from close to midnight to early morning hours. This behavior can be associated to the peak in mesoscale convective systems in the region which occurs in the morning hours. The annual flash densities in the tropical and subtropical parts of the continent were found to have comparable magnitudes. However, the contribution of the continental tropics to the global electric circuit dominates over the continental subtropics contribution throughout all seasons, since the surface covered by the tropical region is more than twice the area covered by the subtropical region.