[1] High-speed video camera records, with a temporal resolution of 20 μs and a spatial resolution of 2.4 m per pixel, of a downward negative lightning flash that terminated on a 440 m high building are examined. The attachment process in this flash exhibited an unexpected behavior in that the downward leader tip connected to the lateral surface of the~400 m upward connecting leader (UCL) below its tip. It appears that the effect of the downward leader on the UCL is significant, while the effect of the UCL on the downward leader is negligible, except for the final 80 μs preceding the beginning of the first return stroke. The ratio of speeds of the downward leader and the UCL tends to decrease with time, ranging from 1.8 to 0.12, although the lower 80-100 m or so of the UCL were too faint to allow speed measurements.

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[1] Forty-five unconnected upward leaders (UULs) occurred in 19 downward negative flashes are analyzed. Each observed UUL is initiated by a downward stepped leader before a new strike point is struck. For each UUL, several parameters are determined when possible mainly by using high-speed images: inception height, inception time prior to return stroke (RS), horizontal distance from the flash's strike point, two-dimensional (2D) distance between the nearest downward leader branch tip and the UUL's inception point at its inception time, 2D length, and 2D average propagation velocity.

High-speed video images of 24 downward negative lightning flashes terminating on tall structures in Guangzhou are selected to analyse the connecting behaviour of the downward and upward leaders during the attachment process preceding the first return stroke. Three types of leader connecting behaviour have been observed: Type I, the tip of downward leader (DL) to the tip of upward connecting leader (UCL), which accounts for 42% of all the events (10/24); Type II, the DL's tip to the lateral surface of UCL, which accounts for 50% (12/24); and Type III, the combination of Types I and II, which accounts for 8% (2/24). For the two cases of Type III behaviour, each case had two junction points (one with Type I and the other with Type II behaviour) between the downward and upward leaders. Therefore, Types I and II can be viewed as the two basic types of the leader connecting behaviour during the attachment process in negative lightning. No attachment process exhibited the connection of the UCL's tip to the lateral surface of DL. The presence of multiple DL branches and their integrated effect on the development of positive UCL/UCLs are likely to be the main reasons for the Type II behaviour.

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