Inverted-polarity electrical structures in thunderstorms in the Severe Thunderstorm Electrification and Precipitation Study (STEPS)

Rust, W. David; MacGorman, Donald R.; Bruning, Eric C.; Weiss, Stephanie A.; Krehbiel, P. R.; Thomas, Ronald J.; Rison, W.; Hamlin, T.; Harlin, J.

doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2004.11.029

Cited by 177 publications

(171 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Indeed, when looking at masking in ÀIC flashes which have negative leaders at low altitudes, it is hard to find consistent traces of recoil sources during negative leaders and masking is close to 100% (recoil sources only appearing during breaks in negative leader activity). The examples shown by, e.g., Thomas et al [2000Thomas et al [ , 2001, Mazur [2002], and Rust et al [2005] also support this.…”

Section: Masking Of Positive Leaders and Retrograde (Recoil) Leaderssupporting

confidence: 57%

“…Observed with high-speed cameras, they look like luminous streaks occurring 3000-5000 times per second [Montanyà et al, 2012], revealing the locations of barely visible positive leader branches [Saba et al, 2008]. Their speed (>4 · 10 6 m s À1 ) [e.g., Saba et al, 2008] is rarely resolved by present VHF time-of-arrival systems, but they are detectable and often used to identify negative charge layers [Rust et al, 2005].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Asymmetries in bidirectional leader development of lightning flashes

Velde

Montanyà

2013

JGR Atmospheres

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Lightning flashes develop as a bidirectional tree, with a negative and a positive end propagating simultaneously into cloud charges of the opposite polarity. In recent years, this process has been modeled assuming that the bidirectional channel remains a zero‐net‐charge perfect conductor starting at the electric potential of its initial location. So far, both leader ends were treated identically. We summarize characteristics of bidirectional leader development of various lightning flashes registered by the Ebro 3‐D Lightning Mapping Array at the east coast of Spain, supplemented by high‐speed camera records. In order to follow the horizontal development of positive and negative leaders over time, a time‐distance‐altitude graph was designed, using the flash origin or a cloud‐to‐ground stroke as reference. The examples confirm that negative and positive leaders propagate at characteristic horizontal speeds (105 and 2 · 104 m s−1). The positive leader's low apparent speed corresponds to the phase when recoil processes are active. Very fast negative leaders (up to 8 · 105 m s−1) are detected in association with positive cloud‐to‐ground strokes. Negative leaders respawn repeatedly from the origin or as a retrograde negative leader at the positive branch. Positive leaders remain propagating throughout the flash or until reaching ground. We show that the velocity difference shifts the potential of the leader, increasing the gradient with cloud charge at the positive end while reducing it at the negative end. The positive section lowers its potential through retrograde negative leaders, eventually making it possible to emit a new negative leader into the upper positive potential well.

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Section: Masking Of Positive Leaders and Retrograde (Recoil) Leaderssupporting

confidence: 57%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetries in bidirectional leader development of lightning flashes

Velde

Montanyà

2013

JGR Atmospheres

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“…The lighter hydrometeors are transported upward, the heaviest being sustained at lower altitude in the cloud. Combined with cloud dynamics and cloud microphysics, electrification processes lead to dipoles, tripoles and even stacks of charged zones vertically distributed in the thundercloud (Stolzenburg et al, 1998;Rust et al, 2005). Between the charged regions, the ambient electric field can reach very high values, i.e., more than 100 kV m −1 (Marshall et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An overview of the lightning and atmospheric electricity observations collected in southern France during the HYdrological cycle in Mediterranean EXperiment (HyMeX), Special Observation Period 1

et al. 2015

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Abstract. The PEACH project (Projet en Electricité Atmosphérique pour la Campagne HyMeX -the Atmospheric Electricity Project of the HyMeX Program) is the atmospheric electricity component of the Hydrology cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment (HyMeX) experiment and is dedicated to the observation of both lightning activity and electrical state of continental and maritime thunderstorms in the area of the Mediterranean Sea. During the HyMeX SOP1 (Special Observation Period) from 5 September to 6 November 2012, four European operational lightning locating systems (ATDnet, EUCLID, LINET, ZEUS) and the HyMeX lightning mapping array network (HyLMA) were used to locate and characterize the lightning activity over the northwestern Mediterranean at flash, storm and regional scales. Additional research instruments like slow antennas, video cameras, microbarometer and microphone arrays were also operated. All these observations in conjunction with operational/research ground-based and airborne radars, rain gauges and in situ microphysical records are aimed at characterizing and understanding electrically active and highly precipitating events over southeastern France that often lead to severe flash floods. Simulations performed with cloud resolving models like Meso-NH and Weather Research and Forecasting are used to interpret the results and to investigate further the links between dynamics, microphysics, electrification and lightning occurrence. Herein we present an overview of the PEACH project and its different instruments. Examples are discussed to illustrate the comprehensive and Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. E. Defer et al.: Atmospheric electricity observations during HyMeX SOP1unique lightning data set, from radio frequency to acoustics, collected during the SOP1 for lightning phenomenology understanding, instrumentation validation, storm characterization and modeling.

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“…For organized storms, such as mesoscale convective complexes, multiple charge layers have been observed (Stolzenburg et al, 1998). Also supercells where the main dipole was inverted have been observed (Rust et al, 2005). The oversimplification of our lightning model contributes to the discrepancies between the modelled and observed flashes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Simulating lightning into the RAMS model: implementation and preliminary results

Federico

Avolio

Petracca

et al. 2014

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. This paper shows the results of a tailored version of a previously published methodology, designed to simulate lightning activity, implemented into the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS).The method gives the flash density at the resolution of the RAMS grid scale allowing for a detailed analysis of the evolution of simulated lightning activity.The system is applied in detail to two case studies occurred over the Lazio Region, in Central Italy. Simulations are compared with the lightning activity detected by the LINET network. The cases refer to two thunderstorms of different intensity which occurred, respectively, on 20 October 2011 and on 15 October 2012.The number of flashes simulated (observed) over Lazio is 19 435 (16 231) for the first case and 7012 (4820) for the second case, and the model correctly reproduces the larger number of flashes that characterized the 20 October 2011 event compared to the 15 October 2012 event.There are, however, errors in timing and positioning of the convection, whose magnitude depends on the case study, which mirrors in timing and positioning errors of the lightning distribution. For the 20 October 2011 case study, spatial errors are of the order of a few tens of kilometres and the timing of the event is correctly simulated. For the 15 October 2012 case study, the spatial error in the positioning of the convection is of the order of 100 km and the event has a longer duration in the simulation than in the reality.To assess objectively the performance of the methodology, standard scores are presented for four additional case studies. Scores show the ability of the methodology to simulate the daily lightning activity for different spatial scales and for two different minimum thresholds of flash number density. The performance decreases at finer spatial scales and for higher thresholds.The comparison of simulated and observed lighting activity is an immediate and powerful tool to assess the model ability to reproduce the intensity and the evolution of the convection. This shows the importance of using computationally efficient lightning schemes, such as the one described in this paper, in forecast models.

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Inverted-polarity electrical structures in thunderstorms in the Severe Thunderstorm Electrification and Precipitation Study (STEPS)

Cited by 177 publications

References 16 publications

Asymmetries in bidirectional leader development of lightning flashes

Asymmetries in bidirectional leader development of lightning flashes

An overview of the lightning and atmospheric electricity observations collected in southern France during the HYdrological cycle in Mediterranean EXperiment (HyMeX), Special Observation Period 1

Simulating lightning into the RAMS model: implementation and preliminary results

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