Lightning over Three Large Tropical Lakes and the Strait of Malacca: Exploratory Analyses

Abstract

Lightning stroke density measured by the Global Lightning Dataset (GLD360) has shown several strong maxima around the globe. Several of these extremes are located over large tropical water bodies surrounded by terrain features. Four prominent maxima are examined and compared in this study: Lake Maracaibo in South America, the Strait of Malacca in equatorial Asia, Lake Victoria in East Africa, and Lake Titicaca in South America. Specifically, the authors observe that all four water bodies exhibit sustained maxima in lightning occurrence all night, the peak lightning frequency occurs very late at night or the following morning at three of the four sites, and the nocturnal maxima are out of phase at the four locations even though the afternoon maxima over the surrounding terrain all occur between 1500 and 1700 local solar time. The meteorological factors affecting the diurnal cycle of lightning occurrence over these four water bodies, which are all adjacent to mountains, are explored in this study.