A Study of Lightning Activity over Different Ecological Zones of Nepal

TL;DR

This study analyzes lightning activity across Nepal's ecological zones, revealing significant variation in strike density, with the Lower Tropical zone experiencing the highest and the Trans-Himalayan zone the lowest.

Contribution

It provides detailed quantitative data on lightning strike densities across different ecological zones of Nepal, highlighting spatial variability.

Findings

Lower Tropical zone has the highest lightning density (0.199 per km²/year).

Trans-Himalayan zone has the lowest lightning density (0.02 per km²/year).

Other zones show intermediate densities, indicating diverse lightning activity patterns.

Abstract

In the present work, occurrence of lightning activity over different ecological zones of Nepal has been studied. It has been observed that Lower Tropical zone receives lightning strikes with largest value of density of strikes whereas the Trans-Himalayan zone receives lightning strikes with least value of density of strikes. The density of lightning strikes over the Lower Tropical zone is 0.199 per square km per year whereas, that over the Trans-Himalayan is 0.02 per square km per year. Other three zones whose values were observed to be in the higher side were Upper Tropical, Sub-tropical and Water Body with annual densities of lightning strikes of 0.145 per square km, 0.121 per square km and 0.12 per square km respectively. During a year, 0.026 per square km and 0.022 per square km are densities of lightning strikes for Alpine and Nival Zones respectively which are close to the lowest value of Trans-Himalayan zone. Remaining two zones, Sub-alpine and Temperate, respectively experienced lightning strikes with densities 0.061 per square km and 0.088 per square km per year.