Cloud Lightning Research Articles

Open-pit post-blast dust cloud lightning

Lightning has been observed in dust clouds following open-pit blasting. It is proposed that the occurrence of this phenomenon is related to the physical composition and characterization of the mineral fines that comprise the bulk of the dust cloud. Silicate minerals, which are susceptible to fine fracturing during blasting, generate the initial charge. This is further enhanced by collisions and friction during the turbulent upcast in the post-blast dust cloud. Varying size fractions result in different rates at which these particles drop out of suspension and create a secondary temperature gradient. This results in the creation of two charged zones and increases the potential of developing a discharge in the form of lightning. The ideal prevailing meteorological conditions need to be windless to minimize the effect of particle dissipation and have sufficient moisture to enhance the potential of generating lightning.

Pozorování nadoblačných blesků typu tygří elfové z observatoře Nýdek

This special variety of above-cloud lightning of the ELVES type (called elfové in Czech) was only discovered in 2013. As the name suggests, the phenomenon at first glance looks like the sky scratched by tiger claws. The observed horizontal lines are actually density waves in the atmosphere, at levels around the mesopause. The so-called atmospheric gravitational waves are visible, either as inhomogeneities of atmospheric light radiation (airglow) or, as in the case of tiger elves – due to a strong lightning, accompanied by a huge light circle – an elf. In the first years after the discovery of tiger elves, not much attention was paid to this phenomenon by the author. Capturing elf-type cloud lightning phenomena is not that common, so capturing tiger elves was a big challenge for the author. The first tiger elves were successfully observed by him in the 2017 season, which was very rich in above-cloud lightning. Since then, tiger elves have been captured in nearly every observing season, providing a rare view of structures in the upper mesosphere.

Signatures of Oceanic Wind Events in Geostationary Cloud Top Temperature and Lightning Data

AbstractA total of 13 ocean-based wind events from 2018, detected by buoys and Coastal-Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) stations, were analyzed using 1-min mesoscale sector Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) cloud top brightness temperature (CTTB) data, as well as 1-min Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) lightning data. The ABI and GLM instruments are located on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES-16) satellite. An oceanic wind event was defined as a buoy or C-MAN station-recorded peak wind gust of at least 14 m s−1, associated with a convective storm. The wind gust was required to exceed the wind speed by at least 4 m s−1 at the time of the event, but not exceed the corresponding wind speed by at least 4 m s−1 for more than 30 min. This study hypothesized that prior to a wind event, there should be unique signatures in ABI CTTB and GLM lightning datasets. The presumption was that the minimum CTTB and maximum flash rate should occur near the same time and prior to the event. The minimum CTTB occurred an average of 10.5 min and a median of 7 min prior to events, with a range from 29 min prior to 1 min after the event. Changes in CTTB were often subtle. A maximum flash rate occurred within 5 min of the minimum CTTB for 11 of the 12 events with lightning and did not exceed 11 flashes per minute for 9 of the 12 events with lightning. Operational weather forecasters might use CTTB and lightning trends to help identify storms capable of producing significant oceanic wind events.

The Initial Stage of Cloud Lightning Imaged in High‐Resolution

AbstractWith LOFAR we have been able to image the development of lightning flashes with meter‐scale accuracy and unprecedented detail. We discuss the primary steps behind our most recent lightning imaging method. To demonstrate the capabilities of our technique we show and interpret images of the first few milliseconds of two intracloud flashes. In all our flashes, the negative leaders propagate in the charge layer below the main negative charge. Among several interesting features we show that in about 2 ms after initiation the primary initial leader triggers the formation of a multitude (>10) negative leaders in a rather confined area of the atmosphere. From these only one or two continue to propagate after about 30 ms to extend over kilometers horizontally while another may propagate back to the initiation point. We also show that normal negative leaders can transition into an initial leader like state, potentially in the presence of strong electric fields. In addition, we show some initial breakdown pulses that occurred during the primary initial leader, and even during two “secondary” initial leaders that developed out of stepped leaders.

Frequency Spectra of Various Events Pertinent to Lightning Cloud Flashes Obtained from Wavelet Transform Technique and Ratified by Narrow Band Measurement Technique

Frequency Spectra of Various Events Pertinent to Lightning Cloud Flashes Obtained from Wavelet Transform Technique and Ratified by Narrow Band Measurement Technique

Recent History of Upgrades to the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network

AbstractThe U.S. National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) underwent a complete sensor upgrade in 2013 followed by a central processor upgrade in 2015. These upgrades produced about a factor-of-5 improvement in the detection efficiency of cloud lightning flashes and about one additional cloud pulse geolocated per flash. However, they also reaggravated a historical problem with the tendency to misclassify a population of low-current positive discharges as cloud-to-ground strokes when, in fact, most are probably cloud pulses. Furthermore, less than 0.1% of events were poorly geolocated because the contributing sensor data were either improperly associated or simply underutilized by the geolocation algorithm. To address these issues, Vaisala developed additional improvements to the central processing system, which became operational on 7 November 2018. This paper describes updates to the NLDN between 2013 and 2018 and then focuses on the effects of classification algorithm changes and a simple means to normalize classification across upgrades.

Significant decrease of lightning activities during COVID-19 lockdown period over Kolkata megacity in India

The outbreak of COVID-19 has now created the largest pandemic and the World health organization (WHO) has declared social distancing as the key precaution to confront such type of infections. Most of the countries have taken protective measures by the nationwide lockdown. The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of lockdown on air pollutants and to analyze pre-monsoon (April and May) cloud-to-ground and inter-cloud lightning activity in relation to air pollutants i.e. suspended Particulate matter (PM10), Nitrogen dioxides (NO2) Sulfur dioxide (SO2), Ozone (O3) and Aerosol concentration (AC) in a polluted tropical urban megacities like Kolkata. After the strict lockdown the pollutants rate has reduced by more than 40% from the pre-lockdown period in the Kolkata megacity. So, decreases of PM10, NO2, SO2, O3 and AC have a greater effect on cloud lightning flashes in the pre-monsoon period. In the previous year (2019), the pre-monsoon average result shows a strong positive relation between the lightning and air pollutants; PM10 (R2 = 0.63), NO2 (R2 = 0.63), SO2 (R2 = 0.76), O3 (R2 = 0.68) and AC (R2 = 0.83). The association was relatively low during the lock-down period (pre-monsoon 2020) and the R2 values were 0.62, 0.60, 0.71, 0.64 and 0.80 respectively. Another thing is that the pre-monsoon (2020) lightning strikes decreased by 49.16% compared to the average of previous years (2010 to 2019). The overall study shows that the reduction of surface pollution in the thunderstorm environment is strongly related to the reduction of lightning activity where PM10 and AC are the key pollutants in the Kolkata megacity.

Statistical analysis of the lightning type ground-to-cloud in the North Caucasus and the Stavropol territory

Statistical analysis of lightning activity in the North Caucasus and Stavropol Territory depending on orography is carried out. The statistical characteristics of ground - cloud lightning for the period 2009-2018 on the territory of 173056 km2 were analyzed.

Morphological characteristics of preliminary breakdown pulses of hybrid intra cloud–negative cloud-to-ground lightning at low lattitude

Preliminary breakdown (PB) pulses can represent the propagation path of lightning initiation and can be used to model the charge structure of a thundercloud. The characteristics of PB pulses from the lightning initiation process depend on the charge structure of the lightning cloud. This study presents the PB pulse morphology and charge structure of thunderclouds from hybrid intracloud–negative cloud-to-ground (hybrid IC-NCG) lightning in Padang, Indonesia. PB pulses were obtained from lightning radiation electric field observation. A total of 41 PB pulse waveforms of hybrid IC-NGC flashes were analyzed. Three types of PB pulse characteristics occurred in association with three different types of hybrid IC-NCG lightning morphologies. Hybrid IC-NCG lightning can be initiated from the main negative cloud charge to the upper positive cloud charge or vice-versa. The propagation direction of the initial PB pulse train of hybrid IC-NCG flashes is either upward or downward.

ANALISIS MEDAN LISTRIK YANG DIPRODUKSI OLEH PRELIMINARY BREAKDOWN PADA PETIR NEGATIF AWAN KE BUMI

The main objective of this thesis is to demonstrate the benefits of the analysis of Power Spectrum Density (PSD) to observe the change of the electric field at intermediate negative lightning cloud to ground (CG) and terminology-intermediate breakdown-leader (BIL) before turning the struck first. Analysis was done on data 74 occurrence of lightning in the city of Padang, with terminology BIL. Time domain analysis time – frequency of use applications Short Time Fourier Trasnform (STFT), then the results of the analysis time domain – frequency domain analysis compared with the time. The basis of the use of the STFT is the calculation of Spektogram. Time domain analysis of results time – frequency domain analysis against the difference obtained by time, where for data with sampling rate 1 MS/s (low resolution) in the domain of time, does not happen much changes compared data with sampling rate 25 MS/s (high resolution), high resolution spectrum due to clearer spectrum amplitude frequency. Different the results of the calculation phase BIL with time domain data will look on the lightning with a time limit of occurrence of short or Intermediate phase on the value of the voltage E smaller, because it forms the lower wave recording-amplitudo, so can be seen clearly the difference phases of BIL is happening. Keyword: Preliminary Breakdown, Intermediate Duration, phase based on Power Spectrum Density BIL.

ATDnet Detection Efficiency and Cloud Lightning Detection Characteristics from Comparison with the HyLMA during HyMeX SOP1

AbstractThis study provides the first comprehensive quantitative detection efficiency (DE) estimation of the Met Office long-range very low-frequency (VLF) lightning location system, the Arrival Time Difference Network ATDnet, with a focus on cloud flash detection. ATDnet uses sensors in and around Europe to detect lightning in Europe, northern Africa, and northern parts of the Atlantic.In the present paper, ATDnet is validated against the Hydrological Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment (HyMeX) Lightning Mapping Array (HyLMA) deployed in the south of France in autumn 2012 as a part of the HyMeX project Special Observation Period 1 (SOP1). Three storms (on 5, 11, and 25 September 2012) were selected for this study, as their activity was sufficient to provide good statistics but also low enough to avoid ambiguous situations due to temporally overlapping flashes.The overall ATDnet flash DE was approximately 89% for the 281 ground flashes [cloud to ground (CG)] and 24% for the 1324 cloud flashes [inter/intracloud (IC)] during the storms. It was also demonstrated that variations in cloud flash characteristics (e.g., flash vertical extent) have a significant impact on DE between and during the studied storms.

Lightning locating systems: Insights on characteristics and validation techniques

AbstractGround‐based and satellite‐based lightning locating systems are the most common ways to detect and geolocate lightning. Depending upon the frequency range of operation, LLSs may report a variety of processes and characteristics associated with lightning flashes including channel formation, leader pulses, cloud‐to‐ground return strokes, M‐components, ICC pulses, cloud lightning pulses, location, duration, peak current, peak radiated power and energy, and full spatial extent of channels. Lightning data from different types of LLSs often provide complementary information about thunderstorms. For all the applications of lightning data, it is critical to understand the information that is provided by various lightning locating systems in order to interpret it correctly and make the best use of it. In this study, we summarize the various methods to geolocate lightning, both ground‐based and satellite‐based, and discuss the characteristics of lightning data available from various sources. The performance characteristics of lightning locating systems are determined by their ability to geolocate lightning events accurately with high detection efficiency and with low false detections and report various features of lightning correctly. Different methods or a combination of methods may be used to validate the performance characteristics of different types of lightning locating systems. We examine these methods and their applicability in validating the performance characteristics of different LLS types.

Infrared satellite rainfall monitoring: relationships between cloud towers, rainfall intensity, and lightning

Infrared satellite precipitation estimation algorithms rely on relationships between cloud top properties and rainfall. This study is unique in comparing instantaneous (rather than average) precipitation distributions and lightning strikes to satellite-detected cloud tower attributes. Roughly 2/3 of cloud towers represented areas of strong updrafts rising out of the surrounding cloud mass. Half of the precipitation occurred in the cloud mass outside these towers, matching the probability of finding precipitation in progress when a tower is first detected. Nearly the same pattern occurs for lightning but with lower fractions. Typically, the distribution of instantaneous rainfall rates had the same shape inside and outside the towers, and did not change with tower top temperature or area; yet the frequency of occurrence increased as towers became colder and smaller. This suggests that the location of precipitation events inside a storm does not affect instantaneous rainfall rates, only the frequency of occurrence in time and/or space.

Electromagnetic Methods of Lightning Detection

Both cloud-to-ground and cloud lightning discharges involve a number of processes that produce electromagnetic field signatures in different regions of the spectrum. Salient characteristics of measured wideband electric and magnetic fields generated by various lightning processes at distances ranging from tens to a few hundreds of kilometers (when at least the initial part of the signal is essentially radiation while being not influenced by ionospheric reflections) are reviewed. An overview of the various lightning locating techniques, including magnetic direction finding, time-of-arrival technique, and interferometry, is given. Lightning location on global scale, when radio-frequency electromagnetic signals are dominated by ionospheric reflections, is also considered. Lightning locating system performance characteristics, including flash and stroke detection efficiencies, percentage of misclassified events, location accuracy, and peak current estimation errors, are discussed. Both cloud and cloud-to-ground flashes are considered. Representative examples of modern lightning locating systems are reviewed. Besides general characterization of each system, the available information on its performance characteristics is given with emphasis on those based on formal ground-truth studies published in the peer-reviewed literature.

The Relationship between Total Cloud Lightning Behavior and Radar-Derived Thunderstorm Structure

Abstract Total lightning detection systems have been in development since the mid-1980s and deployed in several areas around the world. Previous studies on total lightning found intra- and intercloud lightning (IC) activity tends to fluctuate significantly during the lifetime of thunderstorms and have indicated that lightning jumps or rapid changes in lightning flash rates are closely linked to changes in the vertical integrated liquid (VIL) reading on the National Weather Service’s Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) systems. This study examines the total lightning and its relationship to WSR-88D signatures used operationally to determine thunderstorm severity to highlight the potential benefit of a combined forecast approach. Lightning and thunderstorm data from the Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona, areas from 2006 to 2009, were used to relate total lightning behavior and radar interrogation techniques. The results indicate that lightning jumps can be classified into severe wind, hail, or mixed-type jumps based on the behavior of various radar-based parameters. In 25 of 34 hail-type jumps and in 18 of 20 wind-type jumps, a characteristic change in cloud-to-ground (CG) versus IC lightning flash rates occurred prior to the report of severe weather. For hail-type jumps, IC flash rates increased, while CG flash rates were steady or decreased. For wind-type jumps, CG flash rates increased, while IC flash rates either increased (12 of 18) or were steady or decreased (6 of 18). Although not every lightning jump resulted in a severe weather report, the characteristic behavior in flash rates adds information to radar-based approaches for nowcasting the severe weather type.

Lightning VHF radiation location system based on short-baseline TDOA technique — Validation in rocket-triggered lightning

A lightning VHF radiation location system based on short-baseline time-difference of arrival (TDOA) technology is newly developed. Based on the orthogonal 10m-baseline antenna array with four identical broadband flat plane antennas, this system receives the lightning broadband VHF radiation signals and calculates TDOA between antennas in order to determine the location of lightning radiation sources in two dimensions (elevation and azimuth). To reduce noise and improve estimation accuracy of time delay, a general correlation time delay estimation algorithm based on direct correlation method and wavelet transform is proposed. Moreover, parabolic interpolation algorithm is used in the fractional delay estimation to improve the time resolution of the positioning system. In this paper, a rocket-triggered lightning discharge and a cloud lightning discharge are analyzed respectively, combining with simultaneous observations of high-speed camera and fast/slow electric field changes. The results indicate that the TDOA location system could effectively map the lightning radiation sources in 2 dimensions and are in a good agreement with the high-speed video camera images.

Optical emissions and behaviors of the blue starters, blue jets, and gigantic jets observed in the Taiwan transient luminous event ground campaign

[1] On 22 July 2007, 37 blue jets/starters and 1 gigantic jet occurring over a thunderstorm in the Fujian province of China were observed from the Lulin observatory on the central mountain ridge of Taiwan. The majority of the jets were observed to occur in a 5 min window during the mature phase of the jet-producing thunderstorm. These jets have significant red band emissions. However, the blue emissions from these jets were not discernible due to severe atmospheric scattering. A model estimation of the emissions from a streamer reveals that the red emissions in blue starters and blue jets are mainly from the nitrogen first positive band (1PN2). The type II gigantic jet is the first of this type that was observed from the ground. The generation sequence of the gigantic jet begins with a blue starter, then a blue jet occurs at the same cloud top after ∼100 ms and finally develops into a gigantic jet ∼50 ms later. Using “optical strokes” as surrogates of the lightning strokes, the correlations between jets and the cloud lightning are explored. The results indicate that the occurrence of jets can be affected by the preceding local cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning or nearby lightning (intracloud (IC) or CG), while in turn the jets might also affect the ensuing lightning activity.

The Definition of GOES Infrared Lightning Initiation Interest Fields

Abstract Within cumulus cloud fields that develop in conditionally unstable air masses, only a fraction of the cumuli may eventually develop into deep convection. Identifying which of these convective clouds is most likely to generate lightning often starts with little more than a qualitative visual satellite analysis. The goal of this study is to identify the observed satellite infrared (IR) signatures associated with growing cumulus clouds prior to the first lightning strike, or lightning initiation (LI). This study quantifies the behavior of 10 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-12 (GOES-12) IR fields of interest in the 1 h in advance of LI. A total of 172 lightning-producing storms, which occurred during the 2009 convective season, are manually tracked and studied over four regions: northern Alabama, central Oklahoma, the Kennedy Space Center, and Washington, D.C. Four-dimensional and cloud-to-ground lightning array data provide a total cloud lightning picture (in-cloud, cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-air, and cloud-to-ground) and thus precise LI points for each storm in both time and space. Statistical significance tests are conducted on observed trends for each of the 10 LI fields to determine the unique information each field provides in terms of behavior prior to LI. Eight out of 10 LI fields exhibited useful information at least 15 min in advance of LI, with 35 min being the average. Statistical tests on these eight fields are compared for separate large geographical areas. Median IR temperatures and 3.9-μm reflectance values are then determined for all 172 events as an outcome, which may be valuable when implementing a LI prediction algorithm into real-time satellite-based systems.

Study of the transport parameters of cloud lightning plasmas

Three spectra of cloud lightning have been acquired in Tibet (China) using a slitless grating spectrograph. The electrical conductivity, the electron thermal conductivity, and the electron thermal diffusivity of the cloud lightning, for the first time, are calculated by applying the transport theory of air plasma. In addition, we investigate the change behaviors of parameters (the temperature, the electron density, the electrical conductivity, the electron thermal conductivity, and the electron thermal diffusivity) in one of the cloud lightning channels. The result shows that these parameters decrease slightly along developing direction of the cloud lightning channel. Moreover, they represent similar sudden change behavior in tortuous positions and the branch of the cloud lightning channel.

On phenomenology of compact intracloud lightning discharges

We examined wideband electric fields, electric and magnetic field derivatives, and narrowband VHF (36 MHz) radiation bursts produced by 157 compact intracloud discharges (CIDs). These poorly understood lightning events appear to be the strongest natural producers of HF‐VHF radiation. All the events transported negative charge upward (or lowered positive charge), 150 were located by the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN), and 149 of them were correctly identified as cloud discharges. NLDN‐reported distances from the measurement station were 5–132 km. Three types of wideband electric field waveforms were observed. About 73% of CIDs occurred in isolation; 24% occurred prior to, during, or following cloud‐to‐ground or “normal” cloud lightning; and 4% occurred in pairs, separated by less than 200 ms (“multiple” CIDs). For a subset of 48 CIDs, the geometric mean of radiation source height was estimated to be 16 km. It appears that some CIDs actually occurred above cloud tops in clear air or in convective surges (plumes) overshooting the tropopause and penetrating deep into the stratosphere. For the same 48 CIDs, the geometric mean electric field peak normalized to 100 km (inclined distance) was as high as 20 V/m, and for 22 events within 10–30 km (horizontal distance), it was 15 V/m, both of which are higher than that for first strokes in negative cloud‐to‐ground lightning. The geometric means of total electric field pulse duration, width of initial half cycle, and ratio of initial peak to opposite polarity overshoot were 23 μs, 5.6 μs, and 5.7, respectively.