We report on a terrestrial gamma ray flash (TGF) that occurred on 15 August 2014 coincident with an altitude‐triggered lightning at the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing (ICLRT) in North Central Florida. The TGF was observed by a ground‐level network of gamma ray, close electric field, distant magnetic field, Lightning Mapping Array (LMA), optical, and radar measurements. Simultaneous gamma ray and LMA data indicate that the upward positive leader of the triggered lightning flash induced relativistic runaway electron avalanches when the leader tip was at about 3.5 km altitude, resulting in the observed TGF. Channel luminosity and electric field data show that there was an initial continuous current (ICC) pulse in the lightning channel to ground during the time of the TGF. Modeling of the observed ICC pulse electric fields measured at close range (100–200 m) indicates that the ICC pulse current had both a slow and fast component (full widths at half maximum of 235 μs and 59 μs) and that the fast component was more or less coincident with the TGF, suggesting a physical association between the relativistic runaway electron avalanches and the ICC pulse observed at ground. Our ICC pulse model reproduces moderately well the measured close electric fields at the ICLRT as well as three independent magnetic field measurements made about 250 km away. Radar and LMA data suggest that there was negative charge near the region in which the TGF was initiated.

We have developed semi‐independent methods for determining CH2O scavenging efficiencies (SEs) during strong midlatitude convection over the western, south‐central Great Plains, and southeastern regions of the United States during the 2012 Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) Study. The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with chemistry (WRF‐Chem) was employed to simulate one DC3 case to provide an independent approach of estimating SEs and the opportunity to study CH2O retention in ice when liquid drops freeze. Measurements of CH2O in storm inflow and outflow were acquired on board the NASA DC‐8 and the NSF/National Center for Atmospheric Research Gulfstream V (GV) aircraft employing cross‐calibrated infrared absorption spectrometers. This study also relied heavily on the nonreactive tracers i‐/n‐butane and i‐/n‐pentane measured on both aircraft in determining lateral entrainment rates during convection as well as their ratios to ensure that inflow and outflow air masses did not have different origins. Of the five storm cases studied, the various tracer measurements showed that the inflow and outflow from four storms were coherently related. The combined average of the various approaches from these storms yield remarkably consistent CH2O scavenging efficiency percentages of: 54% ± 3% for 29 May; 54% ± 6% for 6 June; 58% ± 13% for 11 June; and 41 ± 4% for 22 June. The WRF‐Chem SE result of 53% for 29 May was achieved only when assuming complete CH2O degassing from ice. Further analysis indicated that proper selection of corresponding inflow and outflow time segments is more important than the particular mixing model employed.

On 29–30 May 2012, the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry experiment observed a supercell thunderstorm on the southern end of a broken line of severe storms in Oklahoma. This study focuses on an approximately 70 min period during which three mobile Doppler radars operated and a balloon‐borne electric field meter, radiosonde, and particle imager flew through the storm. An overview of the relationships among flash rates, very high frequency (VHF) source densities, and Doppler‐radar‐derived storm parameters is presented. Furthermore, the evolution of the flash distribution relative to the midlevel storm's kinematics and microphysics is examined at two times during a period of rapid storm intensification. The timing of increases in VHF counts in the 8–10 km above ground level (agl) layer, which contained the largest VHF source counts, is similar to the timing of increases in updraft mass flux, in updraft volume, and in graupel volume at approximately 5–9 km agl. Although some increases in VHF source counts had little or no corresponding increase in one or more of the other storm parameters, at least one other parameter had an increase near the time of every VHF increase, a pattern which suggests a common dependence on updraft pulses, as expected from the noninductive graupel‐ice electrification mechanism. A classic bounded weak lightning region was observed initially during storm intensification, but late in the period it appeared to be due to a wake in the flow around the updraft, rather than due to a precipitation cascade around the updraft core as is usually observed.

Deep convective transport of gaseous precursors to ozone (O3) and aerosols to the upper troposphere is affected by liquid phase and mixed‐phase scavenging, entrainment of free tropospheric air and aqueous chemistry. The contributions of these processes are examined using aircraft measurements obtained in storm inflow and outflow during the 2012 Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) experiment combined with high‐resolution (dx≤3 km) WRF‐Chem simulations of a severe storm, an air mass storm, and a mesoscale convective system (MCS). The simulation results for the MCS suggest that formaldehyde (CH2O) is not retained in ice when cloud water freezes, in agreement with previous studies of the severe storm. By analyzing WRF‐Chem trajectories, the effects of scavenging, entrainment, and aqueous chemistry on outflow mixing ratios of CH2O, methyl hydroperoxide (CH3OOH), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) are quantified. Liquid phase microphysical scavenging was the dominant process reducing CH2O and H2O2 outflow mixing ratios in all three storms. Aqueous chemistry did not significantly affect outflow mixing ratios of all three species. In the severe storm and MCS, the higher than expected reductions in CH3OOH mixing ratios in the storm cores were primarily due to entrainment of low‐background CH3OOH. In the air mass storm, lower CH3OOH and H2O2 scavenging efficiencies (SEs) than in the MCS were partly due to entrainment of higher background CH3OOH and H2O2. Overestimated rain and hail production in WRF‐Chem reduces the confidence in ice retention fraction values determined for the peroxides and CH2O.

During the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) experiment in summer 2012, airborne measurements were performed in the anvil inflow/outflow of thunderstorms over the Central U.S. by three research aircraft. A general overview of Deutsches Zentrum für Luft‐ und Raumfahrt (DLR)‐Falcon in situ measurements (CO, O3, SO2, CH4, NO, NOx, and black carbon) is presented. In addition, a joint flight on 29 May 2012 in a convective line of isolated supercell storms over Oklahoma is described based on Falcon, National Science Foundation/National Center for Atmospheric Research Gulfstream‐V (NSF/NCAR‐GV), and NASA‐DC8 trace species in situ and lidar measurements. During DC3 some of the largest and most destructive wildfires in New Mexico and Colorado state's history were burning, which strongly influenced air quality in the DC3 thunderstorm inflow and outflow region. Lofted biomass burning (BB) plumes were frequently observed in the mid‐ and upper troposphere (UT) in the vicinity of deep convection. The impact of lightning‐produced NOx (LNOx) and BB emissions was analyzed on the basis of mean vertical profiles and tracer‐tracer correlations (CO‐NOx and O3‐NO). On a regular basis DC3 thunderstorms penetrated the tropopause and injected large amounts of LNOx into the lower stratosphere (LS). Inside convection, low O3 air (~80 nmol mol−1) from the lower troposphere was rapidly transported to the UT/LS region. Simultaneously, O3‐rich stratospheric air masses (~100–200 nmol mol−1) were present around and below the thunderstorm outflow and enhanced UT‐O3 mixing ratios significantly. A 10 year global climatology of H2O data from the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder confirmed that the Central U.S. is a preferred region for convective injection into the LS.

Use of the three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR) framework in dual-Doppler wind analysis (DDA) offers several advantages over traditional techniques. Perhaps the most important is that the errors that result from explicit integration of the mass continuity equation in traditional methods are avoided. In this study, observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) are used to compare supercell thunderstorm wind retrievals from a 3DVAR DDA technique and three traditional DDA methods. The 3DVAR technique produces better wind retrievals near the top of the storm than the traditional methods in the experiments. This is largely attributed to the occurrence of severe errors aloft in the traditional retrievals whether the continuity equation integration proceeds upward (due to vertically accumulating errors), downward (due to severe boundary condition errors arising from uncertainty in the horizontal divergence field aloft), or in both directions. Smaller, but statistically significant, improvement occurs near the ground using the 3DVAR method. When lack of upper-level observations prevents application of a top boundary condition in the traditional DDA framework, the 3DVAR approach produces better analyses at all levels. These results strongly suggest the 3DVAR DDA framework is generally preferable to traditional formulations.

Unique in situ measurements of CO, O3, SO2, CH4, NO, NOx, NOy, VOC, CN, and rBC were carried out with the German Deutsches Zentrum für Luft‐ und Raumfahrt (DLR)‐Falcon aircraft in the central U.S. thunderstorms during the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry experiment in summer 2012. Fresh and aged anvil outflow (9–12 km) from supercells, mesoscale convective systems, mesoscale convective complexes, and squall lines were probed over Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and Kansas. For three case studies (30 May and 8 and 12 June) a combination of trace species, radar, lightning, and satellite information, as well as model results, were used to analyze and design schematics of major trace gas transport pathways within and in the vicinity of the probed thunderstorms. The impact of thunderstorms on the O3 composition in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (LS) region was analyzed. Overshooting cloud tops injected high amounts of biomass burning and lightning‐produced NOx emissions into the LS, in addition to low O3 mixing ratios from the lower troposphere. As a dynamical response, O3‐rich air from the LS was transported downward into the anvil and also surrounded the outflow. The ΔO3/ΔCO ratio was determined in the anvil outflow region. A pronounced in‐mixing of O3‐rich stratospheric air masses was observed in the outflow indicated by highly positive or even negative ΔO3/ΔCO ratios (+1.4 down to −3.9). Photochemical O3 production (ΔO3/ΔCO = +0.1) was found to be minor in the recently lofted pollution plumes. O3 mixing ratios within the aged anvil outflow were mainly enhanced due to dynamical processes.

Nearly continuous wind retrievals every three minutes for an unprecedented 90-minute period were constructed during multiple mesocyclone cycles in a tornadic high-precipitation supercell. Asymptotic contraction rate analysis revealed the relationship between the primary and secondary rear-flank gust fronts (RFGF and SRFGFs) and the rear-flank downdraft (RFD) and occlusion downdrafts. This is thought to be the first radar-based analysis where the relationship between the near-surface gust fronts and their parent downdrafts has been explored for sequential mesocyclones. Changes in the SRFGFs were associated with surges in the RFD. During part of the mesocyclone lifecycle, the SRFGF produced a band of low-level convergence and associated deep updraft along the southwestern side of the hook echo region that ingested the RFD outflow and limited both entrainment into the RFD and reinforcement of low-level convergence along the leading edge of the primary RFGF. The second mesocyclone intensified from stretching in an occlusion updraft rather than in the primary updraft. This low-level mesocyclone remained well separated from the updraft shear region vorticity that was associated with a more traditional midlevel mesocyclone. However, the third mesocyclone initiated in the vorticity-rich region of the primary updraft zone and was amplified by stretching in the primary updraft.