We’re looking a multicellular situation in OR. We’ve had no lightning jumps show up in our area, so have been looking at the other lightning data available to us. Occasionally, an ENI cell will show up; however, we’re wondering how useful the cell area data is in a timeseries during a multicell event. A cell will be flagged and then its shape may change drastically as in the example below (upper-left panel). However, this change doesn’t appear to be tied to a drastic change in lightning or radar data – anything physical happening in the storm. Rather, it appears to be mostly due to how the clustering is determined.

Perhaps its value is greater in a more cellular storm mode. Perhaps the terrain is also causing a problem?

Williams & MacGyver