Stationary severe thunderstorms over Malaga on 19 February 2017

Abstract

During the dawn of 19 February 2017, a set of intense thunderstorms occurred over south Spain. Malaga city was especially affected by these thunderstorms. Precipitation, that started at about 01:30 UTC (02:30 local time) and lasted around 8 hours, peaked just after 02:00 UTC. The horizontal distribution of precipitation was quite variable, showing some maxima over the center and eastern Malaga city. This case study, that discusses the highly localized and stationary thunderstorms previously described, is tackled from both scales, synoptic and mesoscale, adding some issues at microscale. To carry out this task, deterministic outputs and convective diagnostic products of the ECMWF model, and remote sensing (radar, lightning and both basic and NWCSAF satellite products) and observation data products are used.