Environmental Influences on the Distribution of Intense Lightning in Tropical Cyclones During Landfall in China

Abstract Based on lightning data from 84 tropical cyclones (TCs) that made landfall in China from 2010 to 2022, this study investigates the spatial patterns of intense lightning in TCs and their associations with large‐scale environmental conditions. Individual time periods ranking in the top 10% of hourly lightning frequency within 0–100 km and 200–500 km radii from TC center were defined as intense inner‐core (IIC) and intense outer‐rainbands (IOR) samples, respectively. The differences in key environmental parameters—including relative humidity (RH), convective available potential energy (CAPE), convective inhibition, vertical wind shear (VWS), vorticity and divergence—of the above two sample‐sets were examined. The results show that IICs are concentrated over offshore waters, whereas IORs both offshore and inland. The highest CAPE is shown in the outer‐rainbands region in IOR, while IIC is characterized by a much smaller CAPE gradient between the inner core and outer rainbands. The vertically averaged RH at all layers is higher for IIC than IOR. The vorticity and vertical velocity of IOR in the lower and middle troposphere (500–850 hPa) are greater than those of IIC, indicating the intense lightning in the outer rainbands is associate with stronger dynamic conditions, particularly enhanced vertical motion and VWS. The VWS dominates the spatial distribution of intense lightning—specifically, downshear‐left quadrant in IIC and downshear‐right quadrant in IOR. Moderate VWS (5–10 m s −1 ) promotes lightning in the outer rainbands, but under strong VWS conditions (>10 m s −1 ) the fractions of IOR drops markedly with a substantial proportion (35%) of IIC still exists.