ANGEO Annales Geophysicae ANGEO Ann. Geophys. 1432-0576 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/angeo-20-107-2002 A study of the relationship between cloud-to-ground lightning and precipitation in the convective weather system in China Zhou Y. 1 3 Qie X. 1 Soula S. 2 Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou, China Laboratoire d’Aerologie, UMR 5560 UPS/CNRS, OMP, 14 av. E. Belin 31400 Toulouse, France Correspondence to: X. Qie (qiex@ns.lzb.ac.cn) 31 01 2002 20 1 107 113 Copyright: © 2002 Y. Zhou et al. 2002 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/20/107/2002/angeo-20-107-2002.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/20/107/2002/angeo-20-107-2002.pdf

In this paper, the correlation between cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning and precipitation has been studied by making use of the data from weather radar, meteorological soundings, and a lightning location system that includes three direction finders about 40 km apart from each other in the Pingliang area of east Gansu province in P. R. China. We have studied the convective systems that developed during two cold front processes passing over the observation area, and found that the CG lightning can be an important factor in the precipitation estimation. The regression equation between the average precipitation intensity (<i>R</i>) and the number of CG lightning flashes (<i>L</i>) in the main precipitation period is <i>R</i> = 1.69 ln (<i>L</i>) - 0.27, and the correlation coefficient <i>r</i> is 0.86. The CG lightning flash rate can be used as an indicator of the formation and development of the convective weather system. Another more exhaustive precipitation estimation method has been developed by analyzing the temporal and spatial distributions of the precipitation relative to the location of the CG lightning flashes. Precipitation calculated from the CG lightning flashes is very useful, especially in regions with inadequate radar cover.<br><br><b>Key words. </b>Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (atmospheric electricity; lightning; precipitation)