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A High-Resolution Canadian Lightning Climatology

Mark W. Shephard , Robert Morris , William R. Burrows & Leslie Welsh

To cite this article: Mark W. Shephard , Robert Morris , William R. Burrows & Leslie Welsh
(2013) A High-Resolution Canadian Lightning Climatology, Atmosphere-Ocean, 51:1, 50-59, DOI:
10.1080/07055900.2012.755946

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 A High-Resolution Canadian Lightning Climatology
Mark W. Shephard1,*,†, Robert Morris2, William R. Burrows3,4 and Leslie Welsh5
1
Environment Canada, Climate Research Division, Science and Technology Branch, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada
2
Aurora, Ontario, Canada
3
Environment Canada, Cloud Physics and Severe Weather Research Section,
Meteorological Research Division, Science and Technology Branch, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
4
Environment Canada, Science Section, Hydrometeorology and Arctic Laboratory,
MSC Operations Prairie and Northern, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
5
Environment & Energy Consultancy, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

[Original manuscript received 3 September 2012; accepted 15 November 2012]

ABSTRACT A high-resolution Canadian lightning climatology is presented. Generating the high-resolution flash
density climatology from a relatively short observation period (approximately 10 years) of the Canadian Lightning
Detection Network can be challenging because of the natural variations in the lightning frequency. To address this, an
objective methodology was developed with the intended purpose of reducing random variations while still retaining
the real spatially significant local variations in the cloud-to-ground lightning flash densities. This technique is applied
to the annual 1 km lightning flash density values across most of Canada (south of 60°–70°N) to generate a high-
resolution lightning climatology. Lightning flash density maps for selected areas are presented that demonstrate
typical patterns resulting from the optimizing methodology. This high-resolution climatology can be used to assess
lightning occurrence and risk for many applications including protection measures for buildings and other structures
such as electrical transmission lines, insurance purposes, as well as general climatological knowledge and public
safety. An example that applies the high-resolution lightning climatology to wind turbine lightning protection is
provided because it was the initial motivation for this research.

RÉSUMÉ [Traduit par la rédaction] Nous présentons une climatologie canadienne de la foudre à haute résolution.
Produire la climatologie de densité d’éclairs à haute résolution à partir d’une période d’observation plutôt courte
(approximativement 10 ans) du Réseau canadien d’observation de la foudre peut poser certains problèmes à
cause des variations naturelles dans la fréquence de la foudre. C’est pourquoi nous avons mis au point une
méthodologie objective qui vise à réduire les variations aléatoires tout en conservant les variations locales réelles
spatialement significatives dans les densités d’éclairs nuage–sol. Nous appliquons cette technique aux valeurs
annuelles de densité d’éclairs sur 1 km dans la plus grande partie du Canada (au sud de 60°–70°N) pour produire
une climatologie de la foudre à haute résolution. Nous présentons des cartes de densité d’éclairs pour des endroits
sélectionnés qui révèlent des configurations particulières résultant de la méthodologie d’optimisation. Cette
climatologie à haute résolution peut servir à estimer la fréquence et le risque de foudre pour de nombreuses
applications, y compris les mesures de protection des bâtiments ou d’autres structures comme les lignes électriques,
pour les besoins des assurances, de même que pour la connaissance climatologique générale et la sécurité publique.
Nous présentons un exemple qui applique la climatologie de la foudre à haute résolution à la protection des éoliennes
contre la foudre, car c’était la motivation première de cette recherche.

KEYWORDS lightning; observation; remote sensing; climatological; applied

1 Introduction
The Canadian Lightning Detection Network (CLDN) operated
by Environment Canada has collected over 10 years of accu-
rate high resolution (1 km2 pixels or cells with approximately
0.5 km nominal positional accuracy) lightning data that covers
most of Canada. A 10-year lightning climatology with a 20 ×
20 km spatial grid has been generated to show regional
patterns of lightning (Burrows & Kochtubajda, 2010; Kochtu-
bajda & Burrows, 2010). In addition to this regional lightning
flash density climatology, there are applications that would
benefit from a lightning climatology with a higher spatial res-
olution (e.g., wind turbine lightning protection, electric power
transmission facility design). Applying the same simple box

*
Corresponding author’s email: Mark.Shephard@ec.gc.ca
†
Previously at: Atmospheric and Climate Applications (AC Apps), Inc., 18783 2nd Concession Road, East Gwillimbury, Ontario, Canada

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 A High-Resolution Canadian Lightning Climatology / 51

averaging approach to develop the much higher spatial network. The data have not been corrected for reduced detec-
resolution (e.g., 1 × 1 km) lightning climatology will unduly tion efficiency. Corrections for event classification noted in
manifest stochasticity because the observational period Cummins and Murphy (2009) were made to the data prior to
(approximately 10 years) is relatively short. When the obser- analysis. In order to handle the vast quantity of data efficiently
vational period is short, the high number of flashes from a the raw lightning data were processed in two separate eastern
few large thunderstorms can result in local random variations and western sections and compiled into equal area 1 × 1 km
in the lightning frequency that does not persist over the long grid boxes starting from the southwest corner of each
term. At the same time, there may be areas with definite per- section. In terms of latitude and longitude coordinates these
sistent patterns in high resolution that reflect real, local vari- 1 × 1 km boxes will produce polygons where the longitudinal
ations in cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning occurrence (e.g., axis increases northward. As an example, Fig. 1 shows the
hills or local ground resistivity variations). Therefore, the chal- annual flash density for 1 × 1 km boxes for 1999–2008 for a
lenge in generating an optimized high-resolution flash density region of southern Saskatchewan covering the Cypress Hills.
climatology is to reduce the random variations while still The advent of more accurate lightning detection networks
retaining as much of the signal as possible from real localized with longer data records has provided the opportunity to
forcing. A method that utilizes clustering to identify the spatial start generating lightning climatologies (Burrows & Kochtu-
and temporal extent of local lightning patterns or “hot spots” is bajda, 2010; Huffines & Orville, 1999; Morisette & Gauthier,
presented, which is then used to determine appropriate local 2008; Orville, Huffines, Burrows, & Cummins, 2011). Many
spatial averaging lengths that can be applied with the “raw” lightning climatologies are reported on a spatial grid resolution
1 km annual average flash density values for different of 20 km, which is the approximate distance that thunder can
regions across Canada. be heard by an observer (Huffines & Orville, 1999) and the
traditional method for estimating lightning frequency in the
past (e.g., normal number of days with thunder). As a refer-
2 High-resolution lightning climatology ence, a 20 × 20 km regional lightning climatology similar to
a Data Burrows and Kochtubajda (2010) for the same region as in
The CLDN has been in operation since 1998 and covers most Fig. 1 is computed and plotted in Fig. 2. Comparing Fig. 1
of Canada. The network consists of 83 lightning detection with Fig. 2 shows how the 20 km block spatial averaging
sensors (31 LPATS-IV, 28 IMPACT/ES, and 24 LS7000); can significantly reduce some of the randomness seen in the
refer to Burrows and Kochtubajda (2010) for the locations 1 km lightning 10-year climatology, but it also shows that it
of the sensors. The older LPATS-IV needs three detectors in
order to determine the location of a lightning flash because
it only uses the time-of-arrival of radio pulses generated
when a flash occurs. The newer IMPACT/ES and LS7000
combine both time-of-arrival and magnetic direction finding
techniques and only require two sensors to determine the
location of a lightning flash (Cummins & Murphy, 2009).
The CLDN data analyzed are the quality-controlled CG light-
ning flash observations processed monthly by Vaisala Inc.,
which is not the real-time flash datastream utilized operation-
ally and by clients of the CLDN. The CG lightning flash is
composed of a series of one or more separate strokes that
move charge between a cloud and the ground and excludes
any cloud flashes that do not move charge to the ground.
For the CLDN processing, a flash consists up to 15 strokes
for a period of 1 s within 10 km of the original stroke with
no more that 0.5 s between strokes; this was defined by
Cummins et al. (1998). It should be noted that more recent
findings have shown that a flash can consist of up to 26
strokes (Rakov & Uman, 2003); however, the percentage of
flashes over the 15-stroke CLDN truncation is exceedingly
small (Kochtubajda & Burrows, 2010). As summarized in
Burrows and Kochtubajda (2010) the CG flash location accu-
racy is approximately 0.5 km or better, with a detection effi-
ciency of 80–90% or higher inside the CLDN. This flash
Fig. 1 An example of the CLDN 1 × 1 km lightning flash density averaged
detection efficiency is approximately 70% at the edge of the over 10 years (1999–2008) in a 100 km region of Cypress Hills, Sas-
CLDN (typically between 60° and 70°N) and decreases to katchewan, Canada. The overplotted white contour lines show the
30% at a distance of 300 km from the periphery of the elevation in metres.

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 52 / Mark W. Shephard et al.
Fig. 2 A 20 × 20 km lightning flash density climatology over 10 years
(1999–2008) for the same region as in Fig. 1.
can smooth out some of the smaller scale spatially coherent
lightning spatial patterns (i.e., those resulting from hills and
ridges and proximity to lakes).
The next step towards building a higher, more optimal res-
olution of lightning climatology is to determine the best aver-
aging length scale that captures the statistically significant
local lightning patterns, while reducing, as much as possible,
any randomness arising from sampling variability in the rela-
tively short period of data.
b Methodology
Figure 3 shows the overall flow of the procedure used to gen-
erate a representative long-term site-specific lightning clima-
tology. It starts by generating an annual 1 km lightning flash
density from 10 years of CLDN data (1999–2008). Then
spatial clustering analysis is performed over 100 × 100 km
regions across Canada to obtain regional optimal averaging
lengths that are used to smooth the randomness while at the
same time retain significant local lighting patterns (e.g., moun-
tains and ridges). This spatial information is then utilized to
generate the 1 km lightning flash density climatology by
applying the averaging lengths (using running means at the
regionally assigned optimal spatial averaging lengths) to the
1 km, 10-year mean annual CG lightning flash density values.
1 SPATIAL CLUSTERING ANALYSIS (GETIS-ORD)
To determine significant local spatial lightning patterns across
Canada objectively in the remotely sensed CLDN obser-
vations, a spatial autocorrelation (or cluster) technique was
selected. There are many different spatial autocorrelation
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La Société canadienne de météorologie et d’océanographie
Fig. 3 Flow diagram for the computation of the 1 km site-specific lightning
flash density climatology.
methods that have been used with remotely sensed data
(refer to Wulder & Boots (1998) for a summary). Wulder
and Boots (1998) confirmed the utility of the Getis-Ord
spatial autocorrelation statistic (Getis & Ord, 1992; Ord &
Getis, 1995) in assessing remotely sensed data. It has been
widely used to identify patterns in remotely sensed appli-
cations such as snow (Derksen, Wulder, LeDrew, & Goodi-
son, 1998), coral reef stress (LeDrew, Holden, Wulder,
Derksen, & Newman, 2004), satellite calibration sites
(Bannari, Omari, Teillet, & Fedosejevs, 2005), and freshwater
chlorophyll concentrations (Anttila & Kairesalo, 2010). It
should also be noted that applying a general spatial autocorre-
lation method directly to the lightning flash densities is more
desirable than using simple single predictors (i.e., topography)
for determining the spatial averaging lengths. The main
reasons are that the lightning patterns can be triggered from
a number of sources, and the spatial correlation can be used
to quantify statistically significant lightning patterns from
natural random lightning variability.
The Getis-Ord statistic, G∗i , for a parameter x (e.g., lightning
flash density) within the neighbourhood distance d around
 A High-Resolution Canadian Lightning Climatology / 53
pixel (location or cell) i is computed as,

respectively, computed from the entire scene,
j wij (d)xj
G∗i (d) =
, (1)
j xj
where w is the spatial weight assigned to all pixels within d of
pixel i. Note that there are two versions of the Getis statistic,
which differ only in whether the pixel i itself is included or
not. As illustrated in Fig. 4, for remote sensing applications
it is desirable to compute the Getis statistic for a specified
moving window around the centre observation pixel i; there-
fore, the version of the statistic that includes i itself (i.e., wii
≠ 0) is utilized (e.g., Derksen et al., 1998; Wulder & Boots,
1998). In this application, binary weights are used (w = 1
inside the window, w = 0 outside the window). Thus, for the
general G∗i the total of the values within the neighbourhood
window region (numerator) are expressed relative to the
totals for the entire scene (spatial domain under consideration).
Note that when choosing a window size, a minimum of eight
pixels are used so that G∗i is normally distributed (Griffith,
Getis, & Ord, 1996). Ord and Getis (1995) provide a standar-
dized version of G∗i that can be expressed in terms of a Z score
as the statistic minus its expected value E(G∗i ) divided by its
standard deviation σ(G∗i ),
G∗ − E(G∗i )
zG∗i (d) = i
σ(G∗i )



j wij (d)xj −

x j wij (d)
= 

1/2 , (2)
[(n j w2ij (d)) − ( j wij (d))2 ]
s that the resulting spatial clustering itself is not used directly
(n − 1)
Fig. 4 Illustration of how the Getis-Ord statistic is calculated spatially across
the remotely sensed scene. This example is for a pixel centred at pos-
ition (2,2) for a distance of 1 pixel corresponding to a 3 × 3 neighbour-
hood window region. Binary weights (w = 1) are used to define the
neighbourhood window region. The Getis statistic is computed for
each value by stepping the window region pixel-by-pixel over the
entire 100 × 100 scene.
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Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
where
x and s2 are the global sample variance and mean,




(xj −
x)2 2
j xj j j xj

x = and s2 = = −
x2 . (3)
n n n
Therefore, if the G∗i computed for a pixel within a local
neighbourhood window region is greater (less) than the
expected values for the local neighbourhood region, which
are based on the entire scene, then the standardized test stat-
istic zG∗i will be positive (negative) indicating a potential
cluster of high (low) spots. Because zG∗i is an actual Z score
(normal distribution), the value of zG∗i provides the statistical
significance of the clustering (either high or low) above a
normal random distribution. Under the null hypothesis, zG∗i =
0 indicates that there is no significant clustering occurring in
the neighbourhood distance around pixel i. For zG∗i values
outside the range ± 3.296, the clustering for the neighbour-
hood distance around pixel i exceeds the null hypothesis and
is not random 99 times out of 100.
2 APPLICATION OF THE SPATIAL CLUSTERING TO THE
CLDN
The main purpose for utilizing spatial autocorrelation, or clus-
tering, is to provide an objective method of determining if any
significant and persistent local (<20 × 20 km) lightning pat-
terns exist in the 10-year lightning climatology for various
regions across Canada. Thus, it is important to remember
in this technique but rather it is utilized to provide an estimate
of the averaging lengths for the various regions across Canada
(although the analysis of the detailed spatial clusters them-
selves within a scene might be of interest in their own
right). A scene size of 100 × 100 km was selected for this
analysis because it is both large enough to produce robust stat-
istics yet small enough to capture local spatial scales of light-
ning. For each scene, the zG∗i of each 10-year lightning flash
density pixel is computed with increasing neighbourhood
window distances from d = 1 to 11 (corresponding to
window sizes of 3 × 3 km to 21 × 21 km). Note, pixels from
adjacent scenes are used to complete the windows when com-
puting zG∗i for pixels along the edges of the 100 × 100 km
scene. For each pixel in a scene, the window size correspond-
ing to the maximum local association (distance with the
maximum zG∗i ) was selected provided that the maximum
zG∗i . 3.296 (the cluster rejects the null hypothesis of
random chance). In addition, a persistence requirement that
the selected window size (with the maximum zG∗i ) for each
pixel have a zG∗i . 3.296 for at least 30% of the years in
the dataset was also applied in the analysis. The scene prob-
ability distribution function (PDF) of all the window sizes
(distances) associated with the maximum zG∗i for each pixel
that meets the above criteria was then computed. From the
PDF, a clustering distance for a scene was considered if it
had at least 75 out of the total 100 × 100 number of pixels in
 54 / Mark W. Shephard et al.

a scene. The smallest clustering distance for each scene was
selected if there was significant clustering at more than one
distance within the scene. The smallest distance was selected,
because the purpose of this analysis is to determine any per-
sistent significant spatial scales in the lightning pattern that
one does not want to smooth out with the averaging in an
attempt to reduce randomness in the relatively short obser-
vation period. The results from applying the above procedure
scene-by-scene across most of Canada (where the CLDN
observations are available) are shown in Fig. 5. The results
in Fig. 5 are also shown as a histogram in Fig. 6. Figure 6 indi-
cates that over most of the scenes across Canada an averaging
length ≥9 km was selected. About half of the scenes (1070)
have averaging lengths ≤21 km.
3 High-resolution lightning climatology results and
discussion
The 1 km lightning climatology in Fig. 7 was generated by
applying to each 10-year lightning flash density scene a
running average (window) at the averaging lengths specified
from the spatial clustering in Fig. 5.
Figure 8 provides some local examples of the high-
resolution climatology in Fig. 7 and compares it with the
original “raw” 1 km 10-year lighting climatology, and the
20 × 20 km regional climatology previously provided by
Burrows and Kochtubajda (2010). These three scenes were
selected to show examples of some of the different lightning
flash density patterns seen in the Canadian climatology. The
first example is a mountainous scene over southeastern
British Columbia. It is evident in the raw 10-year 1 × 1 km
data that there is a correlation between the lightning flash den-
sities and the elevation. Most of the lightning flashes are near
the peaks of the mountains and there are very few in the valley
regions. This is a good example of persistent, local lightning
spatial patterns with some local random variability. The
20 km regional climatology for this scene does remove the
local random variations; however, it also significantly
removes some of the small-scale persistent lightning patterns
(e.g., mountain tops and valleys). The spatial clustering pro-
cedure described above stated that there were significant and
persistent lightning spatial patterns on the 9 × 9 km scale.
Applying this averaging length to the raw flash density obser-
vations provided the desired result of creating a representative
long-term high-resolution flash density climatology from 10
years of data by removing a significant amount of the local
random variations, while still retaining most of the real light-
ning flash density pattern where there are larger values on the
mountains and lower values in the valleys.
The next example is a scene from the Cypress Hills region
in Saskatchewan. Compared to the previous mountain region
in southeastern British Columbia, the flash density spatial pat-
terns are a little less obvious in the “raw” data because there is
a significant amount of random variability. This scene may be
similar to other scenes across Canada in regions that receive a
moderate amount of lightning from convective activity. A par-
ticularly interesting aspect of this scene is that there is some
variation in elevation in the scene as a result of the Cypress

Fig. 5 Plot showing the spatial averaging length for each 100 × 100 km region across Canada determined by utilizing the Getis-Ord spatial clustering technique.

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Fig. 6 Histogram of the averaging lengths for each 100 × 100 km scene across most of Canada shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 7 Plot of the high-resolution lightning climatology sampled at 1 km covering most of Canada (south of 60°–70°N).

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 56 / Mark W. Shephard et al.

Fig. 8 Lightning flash density plots for three 1 × 1 degree local scenes over a mountainous region in southeastern British Columbia, Cypress Hills (Saskatchewan),
and the Avalon Peninsula (Newfoundland and Labrador). For each scene the raw climatology, regional climatology, and local climatology of the lightning
flash density is plotted. The white lines overplotted on the scene are the elevation contour lines. The averaging length, which was determined from the spatial
clustering and used to generate the optimized high-resolution lightning, is also provided below the plot.

Hills. Again, as expected the regional 20 × 20 km climatology
does well in removing the local random variations in the light-
ning flash density field. Comparing the regional with the raw
climatology, it does appear that the regional climatology picks
up the large, regional spatial patterns seen in the raw data
expected with the general changes in elevation and pattern
of convective activity. However, it was determined from the
spatial clustering procedure that there were significant and
persistent lightning spatial scales that occurred at 11 ×
11 km, which is significantly smaller than the 20 × 20 km
used in the regional climatology. The optimized high-resol-
ution lightning climatology for this scene was generated by
applying this averaging length to the raw climatology and is
plotted in Fig. 8. Comparing the raw, regional, and local cli-
matologies, it shows that the optimized high-resolution clima-
tology removes a significant amount of the random variability
while at the same time retains much of the significant small-
scale (approximately 10 km) lightning patterns.
The final set of plots in Fig. 8 is for a scene over part of the
Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador. This is a
typical scene from a region of Canada with relatively fewer
occurrences of convective events and, thus, less frequent light-
ning. The random nature of the lightning flash density is
apparent in the “raw” lightning climatology. The clustering

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 A High-Resolution Canadian Lightning Climatology / 57

Fig. 9 The left panel shows the 1 km optimized high-resolution lightning flash density climatology for the same region as in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 and generated from
the CLDN from 1999 to 2008 with the spatial averaging length of 11 km determined utilizing spatial clustering of the lightning patterns. The plot on the right
is the corresponding lightning protection efficiency for a wind turbine with a hub height of 60 m and a rotor radius of 30 m with a permitted risk of damaging
lightning hits of 1/300.

analysis showed that there are no significant local spatial scale
signatures below 19 × 19 km. Because the averaging length
used to generate the optimized high-resolution climatology
was 19 km, the results are very similar to the results from
the regional climatology, based on 20 × 20 km grid boxes.
Both the high-resolution and regional climatologies for this
scene reduce the randomness in the dataset and produce
yearly flash density values less than 0.1 flashes km−2 y−1.
4 Example application of the high-resolution lightning
climatology
There are many potential applications of this high-resolution
lightning climatology, such as assessing lightning risk at
building locations for developers, for insurance companies,
meteorologists, and general climatological knowledge and
public safety. The initial motivation for this analysis was for
an energy application, where the local lightning climatology
can be used as input to the Canadian Standards Association
Standard on Wind Turbine Generating Systems Lightning
Protection (CAN/CSA-IEC 61400-24:12), which recommends
different classes of lightning protection systems on a site-
specific basis. The following is an example of this application.
a CSA Standard on Wind Turbine Generating Systems
Lightning Protection
An example of an application of the local lightning flash
density climatology is the determination of the level of light-
ning protection needed for wind turbines. In order to harness
wind energy efficiently, the wind turbines are often the
highest structure in a region, thus, are often enhanced targets
for lightning strikes. When insufficiently protected wind
turbine blades are struck by lightning, blade damage or
damage to the wind turbine’s electrical systems can occur. A
lightning strike also represents a significant hazard to person-
nel occupying or working on the structure. The Canadian Stan-
dards Association (CSA) standard (CSA, 2007, section 5.3)
specifies lightning protection levels based, in part, on the
risk of a lightning strike on the wind turbine, which in turn
is based in part on the mean annual lightning flash density
at the location. So the numerical value of the local climatolo-
gical lightning flash density will have a direct impact when
used with the CSA standard, both economically in determin-
ing the lightning protection level required and for the safety
and protection of property in the event of lightning strikes
on the turbine or blades. In order to determine the lightning
risk one must first estimate the average annual frequency of
direct lightning flashes (Nd) to hit the structure. As defined
in the CSA standard, this can be computed from the equation,
Nd = Ng × Ag × Cd × 10−6 , (4)
where Ng is the local annual average ground lightning flash
density (flashes km−2 y−1); Ag is the equivalent collection
area of direct strikes to the structure; and Cd is the environ-
mental factor accounting for the site’s terrain (e.g., Cd = 1 on
flat land, and Cd = 2 on a local hill or knoll). The variable
Ag is defined as the area of the ground which has the same
annual frequency of direct lightning flashes as the structure

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 58 / Mark W. Shephard et al.
and from geometric considerations can be computed as
Ag = 9πh2 , (5)
where h is the height of the wind turbine (hub height + rotor
radius).
The protection level in the CSA standard is expressed in
terms of efficiency or the probability of the protection
system conveying current resulting from a lightning strike to
ground with an acceptable risk to safety and damage or
impact to the structure. Efficiency E is defined by,
Nc
E ≥1− , (6)
Nd
where Nc is the permitted or acceptable annual number of critical
events and Nd is the number of annual direct strikes to the struc-
ture, as in Eq. (4). Similar to the example calculation in the CSA
standard, and for purposes of the illustrative example below, Nc
is assumed to be 1/300 (nominally a base value of 1/100,000
mentioned in the CSA standard, modified to account for the
structure only being occupied 0.3% of the time).
An example calculation of the lightning protection effi-
ciency for a specified wind turbine (hub height 90 m, rotor
radius 30 m) is presented in Fig. 9 using the generated local
lightning climatology over Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan.
The efficiency value can be used with the specifications of
the CSA standard to determine which of the four classes of
lightning protection system should be used for the turbine.
This example shows the relationship between the high and
low spatial patterns in the generated optimized high-resolution
lightning climatology with the corresponding required high
and low wind turbine lightning protection efficiency. Note
that the specific characteristics of the wind turbines (e.g.,
hub height) and the acceptable risk of damaging lightning
strikes (Nc) set for a wind turbine installation will vary the
resulting lightning protection efficiency required in a region.
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La Société canadienne de météorologie et d’océanographie
5 Conclusions
The first high-resolution Canadian CG lightning flash density
climatology provided on a 1 × 1 km sampling grid covering
most of Canada (south of 60°–70°N) is presented. The clima-
tology is based on 10 years of data (1999–2008) collected by
Environment Canada’s CLDN. Generating the high-resolution
flash density climatology from a short observation period can
be challenging because of the natural variations in the light-
ning frequency. To address this, a technique was developed
that uses spatial clustering to determine appropriate and
objective regional averaging lengths across Canada that
both reduces the random variations while still retaining the
statistically real local variations in the lightning flash density
patterns. Examples are presented of the resultant lightning
flash densities over a range of different patterns in the local
Canadian climatology.
There are many potential applications for this new high-
resolution lightning climatology. One example application of
this high-resolution lightning is presented for the CSA stan-
dard on wind turbine lightning protection, which provided
the motivation for this initial analysis. This is the first
version of the Canadian high-resolution lightning climatology.
In the future, more CLDN observations can be incorporated
into the analysis to update and refine the high-resolution light-
ning climatology.
Acknowledgements
Vaisala Inc. of Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A., processes the CLDN
data and provides telecommunication services to Environment
Canada. The data are the property of Environment Canada.
We are grateful to our colleagues Heather Auld and Joan
Klaassen for their helpful suggestions on the research pre-
sented in this manuscript. Part of this research was supported
by the Program of Energy Research and Development (PERD)
through contract F12.001. This paper does not necessarily
reflect Environment Canada policies or views.
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 A High-Resolution Canadian Lightning Climatology / 59
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