Multiple Strokes Along the Same Channel to Ground in Positive Lightning Produced by a Supercell

Zhu, Yanan; Bitzer, Phillip M.; Rakov, Vladimir A.; Stock, Michael; Lapierre, Jeff; DiGangi, Elizabeth; Ding, Ziqin; Medina, Bruno L.; Carey, Lawrence D.; Lang, Timothy J.

doi:10.1029/2021gl096714

Cited by 6 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Similarly to Zhu et al. (2021), we observed that subsequent strokes occur after some negative leader branches stop propagating. Therefore, the presence of decayed negative channels seems to be a key aspect in multiple positive strokes.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Our interferometer and LMA data do not show a slow positive recoil leader of several milliseconds before the subsequent return stroke as observed by Zhu et al. (2021), but this is not necessarily in contradiction with their observations. Our instrumentation operates at a higher frequency radio band, and it is more suited to detect breakdown and streamer activity near the head of propagating leaders instead of in‐cloud current pulses.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

“…The subsequent DPL is faster, following a pre-ionized channel, its average 2D speed is quite constant at 1.3 × 10 7 m/s and slightly accelerating in the last 20 μs to 2.0 × 10 7 m/s. This speed range is very similar to the speed of dart leaders following negative CG strokes (e.g., Urbani et al, 2021) and the recent measurements of Zhu et al (2021). In the subsequent DPL, it is not possible to clearly distinguish any intermittent pattern.…”

Section: Comparison Between the First Positive Stroke And The Subsequ...supporting

confidence: 73%

“…In this scenario, the positive leader occurs after the trigger mechanism and is much faster in time (two orders of magnitude) than what was observed by Zhu et al. (2021). Actually, our observations have similarities to the two‐stroke +CG flash shown by Zhu et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 47%

“…They observed that the positive subsequent strokes were initiated from the decayed in-cloud negative branches near their far ends by recoil leaders. In the three-stroke +CG flash presented by Zhu et al (2021), they were able to map the positive recoil leader propagating backward, with a duration of more than 10 ms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Multi‐Stroke Positive Cloud‐To‐Ground Lightning Sharing the Same Channel Observed With a VHF Broadband Interferometer

Urbani

Montanyà

Velde

et al. 2022

Geophysical Research Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Positive cloud-to-ground (+CG) lightning flashes are less frequent than the negative counterpart, about 10% of the global cloud-to-ground lightning, but in general, their charge transfer is an order of magnitude greater (Rakov & Uman, 2003). For this reason, they usually can cause more damage, especially to tall structures like wind turbines (e.g., Becerra et al., 2018;Montanyà et al., 2014) or cause wildfire ignition (e.g., Blouin et al., 2016;Fuquay et al., 1972). Furthermore, +CG flashes are mainly associated with the production of transient luminous events like sprites (e.g., Boccippio et al., 1995;Williams et al., 2010). Therefore, +CG flashes have attracted significant research interest in recent years and some aspects are still debated or require a better understanding.One of these aspects concerns the origin and the development of multi-stroke +CG lightning. Positive flashes usually have a single stroke (Rakov & Uman, 2003). However, several cases of multi-stroke positive flashes were recently observed and reported in the literature. The first study reporting optical observations of multistroke +CG flashes was conducted by Fleenor et al. (2009). They documented for the first time subsequent positive strokes sharing the same channel to ground, and observed nine multi-stroke +CG flashes of which five cases involve a preexisting channel. Saba et al. (2010) reported high-speed video observations of 19 multi-stroke +CG flashes and only one case of subsequent positive stroke along the same channel. These optical observations highlighted the occurrence and rarity of the phenomenon, but present limitations in describing the flash development within the cloud and the mechanisms that make subsequent positive strokes possible.Thanks to improved lightning detection systems, new observations and findings on multi-stroke +CG flashes are emerging. Wu et al. (2020) reported 47 new observations during the winter season in Japan. They observe that downward positive leaders (DPLs) in multi-stroke flashes are mostly originated from in-cloud negative leader

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%