Locating Parent Lightning Strokes of Sprites Observed over a Mesoscale Convective System in Shandong Province, China

Abstract

In this paper, we report the location results for the parent lightning strokes of more than 30 red sprites observed over an asymmetric mesoscale convective system (MCS) on 30 July 2015 in Shandong Province, China, with a long-baseline lightning location network of very-low-frequency/low-frequency magnetic field sensors. The results show that almost all of these cloud-to-ground (CG) strokes are produced during the mature stage of the MCS, and are predominantly located in the trailing stratiform region, which is similar to analyses of sprite-productive MCSs in North America and Europe. Comparison between the location results for the sprite-producing CG strokes and those provided by the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) indicates that the location accuracy of WWLLN for intense CG strokes in Shandong Province is typically within 10 km, which is consistent with the result based on analysis of 2838 sprite-producing CG strokes in the continental United States. Also, we analyze two cases where some minor lightning discharges in the parent flash of sprites can also be located, providing an approach to confine the thundercloud region tapped by the sprite-producing CG strokes.