Development of lightning observation system for short-term forecast of extreme weather events in the Philippine under ULAT project

摘要

Lightning observation has been considered as an effective and low-cost tool to monitor intense thunderstorm related to extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclone, torrential rainfall, etc. Real-time and continuous thunderstorm observation will establish short-term forecast system and prevent hazardous storms. We start to construct ground-based sensor network for lightning and weather observation under the project of “Understanding of Lightning and Thunderstorm (ULAT)” in the Philippines since 2017. In this project, two types of sensor systems are newly designed. One is mainly used for nation-wide lightning observation based on radio observation in 1-40kHz. Ten sensors will be installed approximately 100 km apart to track lightning activity throughout the Philippines Archipelago. The other is utilized for dense sensor network based on electrostatic measurement. Fifty sensors will be distributed in Metro Manila to monitor the electrification of thundercloud and derive charge amount of individual lightning discharge. Both systems are developed based on automatic weather station (AWS) named “POTEKA” for real-time thunderstorm observation. In this paper, specifications of nation-wide/dense observation system are summarized to show detailed plan for thunderstorm observation.