I'm new to working with weather data, so apologies if this is a question with an obvious answer. Using the ERA5 historical dataset, is it possible to determine if a thunderstorm occurred at any hourly timestep? I've looked at the precipitation type parameter, but it specifically states that thunderstorm (WMO code 2) is "not diagnosed in the IFS". https://apps.ecmwf.int/codes/grib/param-db?id=260015 Does anyone know why this is, or can point me to some reading on the issue?
I've looked through all the other parameters of the ERA5 dataset, but I don't see anything that can obviously be used to determine if a thunderstorm occurred (please let me know if there is and I just don't understand the terminology). Is there any kind of a formula that can be used to determine from other parameters if a thunderstorm occurred? I realize that thunderstorm might be an ambiguous term; I was thinking of it defined the same way weather sites do when they say thunderstorms will occur.
Thanks for any insight.
