Lightning activity within a tornadic thunderstorm observed by the Optical Transient Detector (OTD)

Details Lightning activity within a tornadic thunderstorm observed by the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) Lightning activity within a tornadic thunderstorm observed by the Optical Transient Detector (OTD)

Aug 2000

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000georl..27.2253b&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 27, Issue 15, p. 2253-2256

Physics

8

Meteorology And Atmospheric Dynamics: Atmospheric Electricity, Meteorology And Atmospheric Dynamics: Lightning, Meteorology And Atmospheric Dynamics: Remote Sensing

Scientific paper

The first storm-scale, total lightning observations from space during tornadogenesis are presented. During the overpass of an Oklahoma supercell, just minutes prior to tornado touchdown on 17 April 1995, the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) OTD (Optical Transient Detector) detected a total of 143 flashes during approximately 3 minutes of observation time. The estimated total flash rate ranges from 45 (raw counts) to 78 (corrected for detection efficiency) flashes min-1. This total flash rate was at least 17 times greater than the cloud-to-ground lightning rate detected by the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN), indicating most of the lightning was intracloud. Cloud-to-ground lightning at this time was also dominated by positive polarity flashes. In addition, total lightning rates were decreasing rapidly prior to touchdown. These OTD observations are consistent with the limited results from recent ground based measurements of total lightning activity in tornadic storms and corroborate that such storms have unusually high total flash rates, are dominated by intracloud lightning, and that the total flash rates are observed to decrease rapidly in the minutes prior to touchdown.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Lightning activity within a tornadic thunderstorm observed by the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Lightning activity within a tornadic thunderstorm observed by the Optical Transient Detector (OTD), we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Lightning activity within a tornadic thunderstorm observed by the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-738260