Lightning-associated VLF perturbations observed at low latitude: Occurrence and scattering characteristics

Abstract

The occurrence of short-timescale (∼1–100 s) perturbations (early VLF events) on four Very Low Frequency (VLF) transmitter signals (call signs: NWC, NPM, VTX, NLK), recorded at Suva (18.1°S, 178.5°E, L = 1.16), shows the most frequent occurrence on the NWC signal and least on the VTX. Daytime early/fast events on the NWC transmission are (0.2–0.5 dB) with only negative amplitude perturbations with comparatively lower recovery times (10–30 s) as compared with most nighttime events with amplitude perturbations of 0.2–1.5 dB and recovery times of 20–80 s. The World-Wide Lightning Location Network detected causative lightnings for 74 of 453 early VLF events out of which 54 (73%) were produced due to narrow-angle scattering, and by 20 (27%) due to wide-angle scattering. The recovery (decay) of the scattered amplitude of early/fast events on the NWC signal shows both exponential and logarithmic forms, but the linear correlation coefficient is better with a logarithm fit. The first observations of early/slow events in daylight propagation are presented. Initial results on early/fast events with unusually long recoveries (≥5 min) and strong perturbations (≥1 dB) indicate that they are mainly observed on the transmissions from NPM and NLK in the nighttime only, with rare occurrence on other transmissions. Such unusually long recovery of early/fast events may be associated with large ionic conductivity perturbations associated with gigantic jets.