Lightning in Hurricanes

[Ryan Wichman]

I have noticed with all of the press coverage of Hurricane Gustav that there really doesn't seem to be much lightning with any of these storms blowing ashore. From looking at lightning plotted maps, it appears most of the lightning is embedded within the outter NW bands in Gustav. Could anyone shead more light as to why there is not more lightning with the actual core of a hurricane?

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Due to the warm core nature of the inner portion of tropical cyclones, there is very little ice in the convection This lack of ice inhibits charge separation and, in turn, lightning.

 

[Dann Cianca]

Here are a couple of links you might find useful:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz/science/lightnin.php?wfo=fgz

http://newsletter.dri.edu/1999/spring/Lightning.html

The second one talks specifically of lightning in hurricanes.

 

[Brian Emfinger]

And this reminds me. While watching some of the live coverage from a New Orleans station I heard one of the meteorologist mention something several times that was pretty stupid.

"These strong cells here probably contain hail"

edit: and the cells were in the cdo not even the outer bands.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Lightning near the hurricane core is also not very common because of the structure of the hurricane's core as well. In addition to being a warm-core system, one must also consider that the winds in the eyewall of a hurricane also decrease with height, until about half of what they are at 850 MB at 250 MB.

Any T-Storm cell in the eyewall will be highly sheared by this difference, allowing charge buildup on the ground nearly impossible (literally blows the field away) and leaving the only possibility of CC (cloud-cloud) lightning at high altitudes (near anvil level) in the eyewall.

The outer bands tend to behave more like "normal" thunderstorms / squall lines, and generate far more lightning than the eyewall.

Now, with all this said, eyewall lightning does exist. I have seen FREQUENT lightning in the eyewalls of intensifying hurricanes, mainly those at category-1 strength and tropical storms - Again, the less tilting of the updrafts in the core (due to the lighter flow) accounts for this. In hurricane Katrina, as it crossed S Florida as a cat-1 storm, I found frequent lightning in the eyewall, and there actually were a few CG's!

In hurricane Charley in Punta Gorda in Aug 2004 (strong category 4), I saw some occasional lightning in the worst part of the eyewall, just before entering the small "pinhole" 3-mile wide eye! During the second half, I saw a few flashes again in the eyewall - While hanging on and / or praying, ofcourse. Like RH said, hearing thunder is out of the question over the aircraft-velocity winds.

In Charley, the lightning detection revealed lots of lightning in the outer bands, then not much until you got near the eyewall, where a few "sporadic" blips once again appeared around the tight and small eyewall, especially in the convective "chimney" to the right-side of the eye / eyewall. The flashes I saw were NOT power flashes, there was clearly a flicker (return stroke), but I could not confirm if they were CC / CG (I assume CC) because of the poor "white-out" visibility.

I have seen eyewall lightning in hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004 as well, and it was ruled-out as power flashes as it was seen east over the ocean. This lightning was "sheet" lightning, with a highly attenuated green/turquoise color ... Most likely due to the fact it was CC and very high up (looked like an anvil crawler type hidden by a stratus layer from plain view) with so many cloud layers between myself and the lightning bolt.

Some hurricanes, abeit intense, had no lightning. Wilma in 2005 had no lightning at all, not even in the feeder bands, let alone the eyewall. I have heard one report from Ivan back in 2004 that the hurricane hunters expoerienced "frequent lightning and moderate turbulence experienced in eyewall at 10,000 feet" ... I am wondering how much study has been done on this.

 

[Martin Kucera]

Speaking of outer bands... lightning activity was unreal in the outer bands of Hurricane Charley as it was approaching Florida Keys. I could have driven around without my car lights on during that night.

 

[Christine Hudnall]

I can attest to the lightning in Charley, Frances and Jeanne, also to lightning in Andrew. I can also say that during the 3 in 2004 we saw some of the most beautiful colors to the sky, brilliant blue, teal and red. I was transfixed by the colors and lightning. Andrew on the other hand, all I can say is there was lightning and someone had placed about 20 jet engines outside of the house, facing inward.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Turquoise, green and orange colors can have the 'look' of lightning but are almost always power flashes from arcing power lines. They both can light up the sky with equal luminosity, and telling them apart can be difficult.

http://wvlightning.com/2006/francespf.wmv

I have seen a couple flashes of lightning within the core of a tropical system at night (Rita and Frances), but the majority if not all of flashes are arcing power lines.

The most lightning I saw associated with a tropical cyclone was in the outer bands of Ernesto in 2006. There were frequent CGs with those as they came ashore on the northern side of the system.

 

[Christine Hudnall]

G'morning. No, the color of the sky itself was in the different storms, almost a midnight blue, a teal and a red, not the lightning.