Thunderstorm characteristics in Nepal during the pre-monsoon season 2012

•A project for the development of meteorological readiness in Nepal was carried out.•Part of the project was a training for the usage of lightning location data.•Characteristics of pre-monsoon season thunderstorms in Nepal are presented.•The largest stroke density values reached 27 strokes km− 2 per three months.•There are large regional differences in the intensity of individual thunderstorms.

A training period of lightning location data usage has been carried out in Nepal during the pre-monsoon season April–June 2012. The training was one part of a Finnish–Nepalese Project (FNEP) between the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology of Nepal (DHM) and the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). FNEP aimed for the development of operational meteorological readiness in a developing country such as Nepal. The lightning location training included the introduction to lightning location techniques and principles and the actual hands-on training for the operational DHM forecasters. The lightning location system used was the Vaisala long range Global Lightning Dataset 360 (GLD360), which has practically a global coverage. During the three months of training, a dataset of Nepalese lightning was also collected, indicating the pre-monsoon thunderstorm characteristics of Nepal.