A study of lightning and precipitation profiles of a severe convective activity

The data from precipitation radar (PR) and lightning imaging sensor (LIS) onboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, facilitated with data fusion methods and supplemented by conventional meteorological data, have been used to investigate the relationship between the precipitation profiles of thunderstorm cells （or areas, similar to thunderstorm cells as shown by the LIS data） and the features of lightning activities in a severe convective activity in the Huang huai Region on June 29, 2006. The results show that the thunderstorm cells in this severe convective system can be categorized into cells of convective precipitation, cells of stratiform precipitation and cells of the combination of convective precipitation with stratiform precipitation, with the largest amount of cells in the third category and relatively smaller amount in the first two categories. Most flashes of thunderstorm cells occur in the area of convective precipitation. The results also show that the precipitation profiles of thunderstorm differ obviously with the different flash rate. The greater the flash rate of thunderstorm is, the greater the precipitation rate of precipitation profiles above the attitude of 5 km is (especially of the convective precipitation profiles). This indicates that the greater the flash number in the thunderstorm is, the more ice phase particles above the freezing layer of precipitation cloud are.