@InProceedings{SantanaNaccMene:2011:ClLiCh,
               author = "Santana, F. M. and Naccarato, Kleber Pinheiro and Menezes, Wallace 
                         Figueiredo",
          affiliation = "{Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)} and {Instituto 
                         Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)} and {Universidade Federal 
                         do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)}",
                title = "Cloud-to-ground lightning characteristics of severe storms in 
                         Southeastern Brazil",
            booktitle = "Proceedings...",
                 year = "2011",
         organization = "International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity, 14.",
             keywords = "cloud-to-ground lightning activity, storms, meteorological 
                         systems.",
             abstract = "The objective of this work is to study the atmospheric conditions 
                         during cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning activity and the associated 
                         meteorological systems. A more comprehensive study of the CG 
                         lightning characteristics may lead to a better understanding of 
                         the thunderstorm severity. For these developments, it was selected 
                         two cases of severe thunderstorms that occur in Southeastern 
                         Brazil. The synoptic and mesoscale conditions previous to and 
                         during the CG lightning activity was analyzed. Furthermore, the 
                         number of CG strokes and its polarity are also evaluated in time 
                         in order to verify the electrical behavior of the thunderstorm. As 
                         a main result, it was observed that some patterns in CG lightning 
                         activity might indicate some level of severity in such 
                         thunderstorms. A storm occurred on November 17, 2008 has its 
                         genesis around 12:00 Z on the state of Sao Paulo. Its a gradual 
                         evolution over time, but since its inception has caused heavy rain 
                         over the state, and this accompanied by lightning occurrence. The 
                         number of negative flashes during the whole time the storm was 
                         higher than the positive flashes, indicating a not so intense 
                         severity. But on June 27, 2009 a storm reaches State of the Sao 
                         Paulo near 12:00 Z, isnt a gradual evolution over time. The number 
                         of negative flashes is much higher than the positive in a few 
                         hours. But at other times, the number of positive flashes is 
                         closer to the number of negative flashes, particularly from 21:00 
                         Z to 22:00 Z, where both number are almost equal. This behavior 
                         indicates a much higher severity in this case compared to the 
                         previous case. Among the results, considering storms with similar 
                         characteristics, not necessarily they present the same severity. 
                         Thus, the study of the lightning occurrence is important for the 
                         assessment a storm severity. As a future proposal other cases of 
                         severe storms including a more detailed study of lightning will be 
                         studied. The idea is to create a severity rating from the set of 
                         meteorological data based also in the lightning characteristics.",
  conference-location = "Rio de Janeiro",
      conference-year = "08-12 Aug. 2011",
                label = "self-archiving-INPE-MCTI-GOV-BR",
             language = "en",
           targetfile = "F. Santana - Cloud-to-ground lightning characteristics of severe 
                         storms in Southeastern Brazil.pdf",
        urlaccessdate = "12 maio 2024"
}