Thunderstorm activity dynamics during hurricanes

Results of studying the thunderstorm activity dynamics during the Pacific hurricanes in August and October 2001, using broadband recording of the time forms of atmospherics on Kamchatka, have been presented. The number of atmospherics per minute at simultaneously determined azimuths of their sources has been used as an example of thunderstorm activity. An analysis of data processing results has indicated (a) in the absence of hurricanes, the maximal atmospheric flux level (10 +/- 4 pulse/min) was observed at night, and the daylight level was 3 +/- 1 pulse/min; (b) thunderstorm activity increases at the stage of tropical depression regardless of depression development into hurricane; in this case the flux of atmospherics can increase to 250 pulse/min at night and can be widely variable (5 - 100 pulse/min) in daytime; (c) in the sate of hurricane maturity, the thunderstorm activity level is not higher than the background level. It has been indicated that IGWs in the Earth's atmosphere and the lower ionosphere are caused by lightning strokes accompanied by shock waves during expansion of the lightning channel. The results obtained are of interest in studying anomalous effects in the natural electromagnetic field in the VLF band during increased seismic activity on Kamchatka.