Relation between the increment of thunderstorms, temperature and aerosols at Casablanca station

A World wide increment has been detected in atmospheric lightning related to the increase in surface air temperature, sea surface temperature and aerosol density. This work aims to an analysis of the relation between the annual courses of thunderstorms occurrence, the surface air temperature and the occurrence of haze and smoke reports at Casablanca meteorological station in Havana City, which has a very reliable series of tri-hourly observations for a period of 45 years. The thunderstorms series is also related, for a shorter period, to an aerosol index series. The study yields that the frequency of thunderstorms observations has increased by 5% for the period with a highly significant growing trend. Yearly average temperatures also show a highly significant increase and the best correlation is reached for the yearly frequency of occurrence of temperatures above 30°C, where 46% of the variance of thunderstorms occurrence is explained. The haze occurrence reports have also a highly significant trend and show a correlation of 0.65 with thunderstorms. Aerosol index has a growing trend for 2005 – 2016 and explains 58% of the variance of thunderstorms frequency.