Followup: Big Lightning in '05 'Canes

In a followup blog to my original entry on the unusual amount of lightning in 2005 hurricanes, I present images obtained from the U.S. Precision Lightning Network showing the staggering amount of lightning in Hurricanes Katrina and Dennis.

Hurricane Katrina had not only lightning in the eyewall but also in all of the outer bands during her approach to the Louisiana Coast. In fact nearly 20,000 lightning strokes were detected in three hours!

In Hurricane Dennis, more cloud-to-cloud lightning was observed but overall it had much less lightning than Katrina, at least in these datasets, with only 4,000 cloud-to-ground strokes detected in 24 hours, and that included nearby thunderstorms which may or may not have been officially associated with Dennis.

What all this means is going to be left up to bigger brains than mine, but I'm excited that, for the first time in history, we have access to detailed lightning strike data, even when storms are out in the Caribbean, via USPLN.