A Study on Climatic Characteristics of Thunderstorm in Bengbu from 1952 to 2012

With the data of thunderstorms in Bengbu from 1952 to 2012,the climatological variation trends,initial and ending dates,abrupt changes and periodicity features of thunderstorms during the recent 61 years are analyzed by means of climatic trends,assurance ratios,Mann-Kendall abrupt change test and Morlet wavelets analysis. The results show that the interannual thunderstorm variability is great and the mean annual thunderstorm days decline because of the reducing of thunderstorm days in summer. Most thunderstorms appear from April to September,of which July reaches the toppest. The initial thunderstorm dates occur in mid-March while the ending dates occur in late September. Interannual thunderstorm variability presents a trend of first increasing then decreasing and the significant abrupt change occurs in 1980. The thunderstorm days show 2- 4 years,10- 12 years and 16 years oscillating periods for inter-annual and inter-decadal variations.