Lightning discharges distribution estimation over the Tomsk region in 2010-2015

The northern part of the Tomsk region is a typical area of the boreal forest zone. Large forest resources occupy this territory. The forest fund is situated on the 90.5% of its entire area. There are 17 million hectares of forested area, including 9.9 million hectares covered by coniferous. 20-30% of forest fires in the Tomsk region caused by the lightning activity. Analysis of the thunderstorm activity in the context of fires is possible using Tomsk region as sample region. World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) data for 2010-2015 years are used in paper. This network registers lightning discharges throughout the year. The majority of thunderstorms occur over Tomsk region during the summer time. Data on lightning discharges during the period from May to September was selected for investigation. Data on spherics recorded by WWLLN contain the points: date, time, latitude, longitude, error and number of stations in which the electromagnetic pulse was recorded. Lightning discharge density maps were performed for cells 10x10 km.