The characteristics of meteorological conditions and atmospheric instability conditions on selected thunderstorm days in Łódź in 2019–2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26485/AGL/2024/117/7Keywords:
storms, instability conditions, convective potential energy, instability indicesAbstract
The main goal of this work is to characterise the values of atmospheric instability indicators on storm days in Łódź. The assessment of atmospheric instability indices and the probability of thunderstorms were based on instability indices: the CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), KI, TTI (Total Totals Index) and SWEAT (Severe Weather Treat Index) indices. These indicators were determined on the basis of radio soundings carried out at two aerological stations in Legionowo and Wrocław, located 120 km and 185 km from Łódź, respectively. The research was based on 90 storm events in 2019–2023.
The results showed that the analysed indicators reached high values indicating high instability and high probability of storms. The median value for the summer months of the KI index reached the level of 30–32 and the TTI index was 45–48. These values clearly indicate strong atmospheric instability and a high probability of storms. However, the characteristics of the CAPE index showed that storms occurred with a very large variation in the value of this index. The determined median values (for measurements performed during daylight hours) were in the range of 100–500 J·kg˗1.
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