Analyses of summer lightning activity and precipitation in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean

The lightning activity and precipitation in two 3-hour time intervals in the grid boxes of 0.25x0.25 degrees over East and Central Mediterranean during the summer of 2005 and 2006 are analysed. The results show that the frequency distribution of the precipitation amount is shifted towards larger values for the cases with lightning as compared with the cases without lightning. It was found that the number of cases with 3-hour accumulated rainfall greater than 10 mm was bigger when lightning occurred (65%) than when it was absent (35%). Investigation of diurnal and spatial distributions of lightning shows that the afternoon flash density peak is associated mainly with lightning over the land, which is in accordance with the results of earlier works. The early morning flash density peak is associated mainly with flashes over the sea. High correlation coefficients (0.89 during the morning hours and 0.98 during afternoon) were found between rain rate (mm/h) and average flash density (fl/km(2)) when flash density is averaged in logarithmic intervals of rain rate. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.