Advancements in Thunderstorm Nowcasting and Atmospheric Electricity Monitoring by Remote Sensing

Dear Colleagues,

Thunderstorms are among the most dangerous meteorological hazards worldwide. Therefore, the monitoring and short-term forecasting of thunderstorms are important means of protecting lives and infrastructure. Despite the great advances in numerical weather prediction, it is still difficult to accurately model thunderstorms as the underlying physics are not linear. This is one reason why thunderstorm forecasting is so important and usually outperforms NWP in the first few hours. However, physical methods that rely on atmospheric motion vectors do not account for the life cycle of thunderstorm cells, so as the forecast horizon increases, the number of false alarms and missed cells increases. Therefore, better consideration of the life cycle information obtained through analysis of lightning intensity and radar and satellite reflectivity is needed to improve nowcasting. This can be conducted using physical approaches, but in recent years, Deep Learning and other artificial intelligence methods have gained considerable importance.

This Special Issue aims to reflect advances in thunderstorm nowcasting based on Remote Sensing. Thus the topic covers several sections of Remote Sensing: Atmospheric Remote Sensing, Environmental Remote Sensing, Earth Observation Data and Earth Observation for Emergency Management.

• Recent advances in lightning networks and radar and satellite systems and their benefit for thunderstorm nowcasting;
• Recent advances concerning atmospheric motion vectors;
• Recent advances in analysis and monitoring of thunderstorm life cycles;
• Recent advances in convective initiation;
• Recent advances concerning data fusion for thunderstorm nowcasting;
• Recent advances in the use of artificial intelligence for thunderstorm nowcasting;
• Recent advances in emergency management based on thunderstorm nowcasting.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Remote Sensing.

Dr. Richard Müller
Guest Editor

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