Analisi delle condizioni meteorologiche medie alla base della variabilità dell’attività di fulminazione in Italia dal 2010 al 2019

Lightning is one of the most dangerous natural phenomena, and a manifestation of the intense electrical activity that occurs in thunderstorms. Lightning can be promptly detected also at a distance, so it is used to map the spatial distribution of thunderstorms and their evolution in time . This thesis focuses on an analysis of meteorological conditions that drove the lighting activity variability trends observed over Italy in the period 2010-2019. The meteorological parameters were taken from the ERA5 reanalysis, to compare their yearly and seasonal anomalies to lightning over land and over sea, with a further seasonal analysis for the years that exhibited the largest variations. Results show a robust correlation between the CAPE parameter and lighting activity, both showing a large increase around 2015 and in 2018, separated by a remarkable drop in 2017.