A Study of Lightning Activity over Different Ecological Zones of Nepal

In the present work, occurrence of lightning activity over different ecological zones of Nepal has been studied. It has been observed that Lower Tropical zone receives lightning strikes with largest value of density of strikes whereas the Trans-Himalayan zone receives lightning strikes with least value of density of strikes. The density of lightning strikes over the Lower Tropical zone is 19.87 × 10/ km per year whereas, that over the Trans-Himalayan is 2.00 × 10 / km per year. Other three zones whose values were observed to be in the higher side were Upper Tropical, Sub-tropical and Water Body with annual densities of lightning strikes of 14.46 × 10 / km, 12.05 × 10 / km and 12.00 × 10 / km respectively. During a year, 2.56 × 10 / km and 2.17 × 10 / km are densities of lightning strikes for Alpine and Nival Zones respectively which are close to the lowest value of Trans-Himalayan zone. Remaining two zones, Sub-alpine and Temperate, respectively experienced lightning strikes with densities 6.05 × 10 / km and 8.83 × 10 / km per year.