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Torrential rain was accompanied by enhanced lightning activity as well. European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) provides some extra reports of excessive rain, large hail and even tornados/waterspouts. It's interesting to note that probability of lightning was pretty accurate while convective EFIs failed to provide a signal for the most affected areas in Greece. It gave good guidance over NW Turkey though. One of the reasons why the EFI failed to provide a signal might be the fact that we use already diagnosed CAPE and CAPE-shear as a model output while lightning density is computed directly within the convection scheme taking into account CAPE and the amount of hydrometeors as well. As a result, it can happen that in case of very active long-lasting convection, CAPE could be released constantly without peaking at any extreme values, especially at discrete time steps where the CAPE is provided as a model output (which is every hour), so that it could be shown on the EFI. This hypothesis is supported by the vertical profiles shown for few locations affected by torrential downpours.
ATDnet lightning density, ESWD reports and maximum CAPE and CAPE-shear EFI (left) and probability of flash density > 1 flash per 100m2 per day.
24-hour rainfall totals above 10mm (left) and convective EFI verification against ATDnet lightning density and ESWD reports. Four navy triangles on CAPE EFI chart represent four locations where vertical profiles are shown below.
Vertical profiles for Thessaloniki Airport, northern Greece (40.53 N, 22.97 E) where 37 mm of rain were reported.
Vertical profiles for Larissa Airport, central Greece (39.65 N, 22.46 E) where 34 mm of rain were reported.
Vertical profiles for Tripoli, Peloponnese, Greece (37.52 N, 22.40 E) where 47 mm of rain were reported.
Vertical profiles for Kardzali (Кърджали), southern Bulgaria (41.65 N, 25.38 E) where 32 mm of rain were reported.
3.4 Monthly forecasts
The plots below show precipitation anomalies for 25 June to 1 July from forecasts with different initial times.
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