@InProceedings{ZepkaAzaVarSarPin:2014:PrHePr,
author = "Zepka, Gisele dos Santos and Azambuja, Rodrigo R. and Vargas
Junior, Vanderlei Rocha de and Saraiva, Antonio Carlos Varela and
Pinto Junior, Osmar",
affiliation = "{Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)} and {} and
{Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)} and {Instituto
Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)} and {Instituto Nacional de
Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)}",
title = "Predicting heavy precipitation and lightning for a mesoscale
convective system case over southern Brazil",
booktitle = "Anais...",
year = "2014",
organization = "International Lightning Detection Conference, 23. (ILDC); and
International Lightning Meteorology Conference, 5 (ILMC).",
keywords = "lightning, precipitation, mesoscale convective system, WRF model,
PLR, cumulus parameterizations.",
abstract = "On December 10th through 11th 2012, a strong convection activity
over southern Brazil grew into a huge Mesoscale Convective System
(MCS) accompanied by heavy precipitation, hailstorm, damaging
winds and dangerous lightning. The Civil Defense Authority
reported that over 700,000 people experienced power outages due to
either strong winds or lightning strikes or even suffered from
flash floods caused by high rain volumes. The Brazilian Lightning
Location System (BrasilDAT) detected more than 90,000
cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning strikes during the MCS activity,
and approximately 4,000 CG strokes presented large peak currents
over 75 kA. The main objectives of this work were to achieve the
most suitable configuration of the Weather Research and
Forecasting (WRF) model, and to apply the Potential Lightning
Region (PLR) tool, in order to forecast reliably this type of
severe weather event with enough time in advance to adopt
strategies that might minimize injuries and hazardous situations
in the future. Firstly, the CG and IC lightning stroke rates, the
peak currents distribution, and the IC/CG ratio were evaluated.
Observed precipitation from a homogeneous network of surface
meteorological stations was used as proxy data. Lightning and
precipitation were compared during the MCS development in order to
seek for correlations. As well known, current operational models
cannot predict convective subgrid scale processes explicitly, due
to their microscopic and discontinuous nature, and must do so via
parameterization. In this case, a cumulus scheme should try to
transport heat vertically, redistribute moisture, and reduce
thermodynamic instability. Four cumulus parameterization schemes
(CPS) in the WRFv3.3.1 model were investigated to proper simulate
this MCS over southern Brazil. WRF grid points near meteorological
stations with high accumulated precipitation values were chosen in
order to assess the behavior of the simulated data against the
observations. The Potential Lightning Region (PLR) is a tool that
indicates the spatial distribution of lightning occurrence
probabilities in a given area. PLR was developed from a
combination of WRF output variables, and operationally tested over
southeastern Brazil. The WRF convective parameterization selected
from the previous analysis was used to generate new PLR maps over
southern Brazil for the MCS. This case study served as a
laboratory to expand PLR capabilities in the prediction of severe
weather events.",
conference-location = "Tucson, USA",
conference-year = "mar. 18-19, 2014 / mar. 20-21, 2014",
label = "lattes: 9435846940733081 3 ZepkaAzaVarSchPin:2014:PRLIHE",
language = "pt",
targetfile = "Zepka et al- Predicting Heavy Precipitation and Lightning for a
MCS Case Over Southern Brazil-2014-ILDC-ILMC.pdf",
urlaccessdate = "28 mar. 2024"
}