A Method to Identify the Optimal Areal Unit for NLDN Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Flash Data Analysis

Abstract

Currently, no uniform method exists for determining the optimal areal unit to analyze National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) data. To address this problem, this paper utilizes the capabilities of modern geographic information systems (GIS) software to develop a consistent method for identifying areal analysis units while considering the location accuracy of the NLDN. Five grid cells were created at spatial resolutions of 0.1°, 0.2°, 0.3°, 0.4°, and 0.5°. To create cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning strikes, random points were generated at nine densities ranging from 1 to 9 strikes per square kilometer. A buffer of 500 m was placed around each random point to account for the margin of error in NLDN location accuracy. Random points that, when buffered to 500 m, still remained completely within the study region were evaluated as a percentage of all of the strikes to determine accuracy. The greatest accuracy of 95.88% was observed in the 0.5° grid cell at a density of 9 strikes per square kilometer. The lowest accuracy of 80.59% occurred in the 0.1° grid cell at a density of 4 strikes per square kilometer. There was little variation between the accuracies in similar grid cells regardless of their density, suggesting that CG flash density will have little effect on accuracy when selecting spatial resolution. Gains in accuracy diminished as spatial resolution increased. Gains in accuracy between the 0.1° and the 0.2° grid cells are approximately 9%. Gains in accuracy between the 0.4° and the 0.5° grid cells are less than 1%. To achieve 95% accuracy, a spatial resolution of no less than 0.4° is required.