Short-term predictability of weather radar quantities and lightning activity

Accurate, spatially specific, and temporally extended short-term automated forecasts (nowcasts) of lightning activity are of great interest to the preservation of life and resources for a multitude of applications. This paper presents a study to provide insight into the best manner and extent to nowcast lightning activity to a desired location. Radar quantities whose observations have previously been shown to be reliable precursors of lightning activity are nowcasted to introduce a concept of total lead time, whereby these nowcasts can potentially be used to nowcast lightning activity to a desired upstream site (e.g., airport, stadium, etc.). This study extends previous work by analyzing the correlation structure between nowcasts of radar and lightning quantities in Lagrangian space, giving insight into the manner and extent to which lightning activity at a desired location can be nowcasted.