SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF LIGHTNING DISCHARGES OVER TOMSK REGION ACCORDING TO WWLLN DATA FOR 2010-2015

The Tomsk region, in particular its northern part, is a fairly typical forest-covered area of the boreal forest zone. The region has large forest resources. The forest fund lands occupy 90.5% of its entire territory. Forests cover an area of 17 million hectares, including 9.9 million hectares covered by coniferous. 20-30% of forest fires occur in the Tomsk region due to the impact of lightning discharges. Description of thunderstorm activity in the context of fires is possible using Tomsk region as sample territory. The data of the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) for 2010-2015 years are used. The network registers lightning discharges throughout the year. Main part of thunderstorms occurs on the territory of Tomsk region during the summer period. So information on lightning discharges during the period from May to September was selected for research. Data on atmospherics recorded by WWLLN contain the following indicators: date, time, latitude, longitude, error and number of stations in which the electromagnetic pulse was recorded. Maps of lightning discharge density were calculated for cells 10 x 10 km.