AbstractThis study examines initiation locations of intracloud (IC) and cloud‐to‐ground (CG) lightning near Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 1 day. One unicellular and two multicellular thunderstorms occurred over land, and one multicellular storm was 30 km offshore. The storm over ocean was visible on radar 47–51 min before its first flash (of 17 total); first echoes in the storms over land were 23, 12, and 16 min prior to the first flashes (of 34, 16, and 9 total). Initiation points of 66 flashes were identified using the first initial breakdown (IB) pulse location from electric field change measurements or a VHF source coincident with the first IB pulse; 10 ICs occurred without enough data to similarly locate the initiation. All but 2 of 35 flashes that initiated as negative CGs began below 6.8 km altitude; two higher CG initiations (7.1–7.5 km) were the first CGs in two storms. Initiations of 21 normal ICs occurred above 7.9 km, 6 late stage ICs initiated at 5.5–7.5 km, and 4 hybrid IC‐CG flashes initiated as ICs at 6.6–8.1 km. Initiation locations were tightly clustered in small regions of each cell. Over land, early and mature stage flashes initiated within 2 × 2 km in each cell, or about 10–25% of the midlevel reflectivity coverage. One cell over ocean had initiations within 6 × 5 km, less than 30% of its reflectivity area. The IC initiations generally occurred above reflectivity cores, in 15–35 dBZ, and CG initiations were in 30–45 dBZ beside or atop cores.