Lightning, convective rain and solar activity — Over the South/Southeast Asia

The effect of solar variability parameters and meteorological parameters on total lightning flashes and convective rain in two selected regions is studied. The selected regions lie in the same latitude range but differ in longitude and have widely different topological, vegetation and habitat features. It is shown that the sunspot numbers, Ap index, cosmic ray flux and solar radio flux (F10.7 cm) have almost very little effect on the total lightning flashes and convective rain in both the selected regions. The correlation coefficient is less than 0.01 and negative for lightning flashes. For the convective rain it is less than 0.09. For the meteorological parameters such as the temperature variation, convective available potential energy (CAPE), convective cloud layer: total cloud cover and columnar total ozone, the lightning flashes and convective rain are positively well correlated. The correlation coefficient varies between 0.5 and 0.95. However, both are negatively correlated with the mean outgoing long wave radiation (OLR). Lightning flashes are found to be well positively correlated with convective rain in both the regions, with correlation coefficient of ~ 0.7 and 0.8 respectively. Our study suggests that lightning flashes could be used as a measure of convective precipitation in isolated regions.