A storm without lightning strikes?

During operations earlier this afternoon, a forecaster noted a storm in the northern Texas panhandle with an extensive 60 dBZ radar reflectivity core but without any lightning strikes reported by the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN). The forecaster expected that such a mature this storm would be a lightning producer. And some storms are indeed prolific in-cloud lightning producers while rarely producing channels that strike ground. Many storms with high cloud flash ratios were observed during the STEPS field program (Lang et al. 2004).

The GOES-R Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) would have been able to confirm lightning with this storm. The storm unfortunately was not over one of the ground-based Lightning Mapping Arrays that, like GLM, provide real-time total ground + cloud flash rates. Had it been, we would have examined flash rate tendencies associated with modulation in the storm's mixed phase updraft as a complement to radar indications of updraft processes that together provide situational awareness about the likelihood of severe weather threats.