Lightning flashes are known to initiate in regions of strong electric fields inside thunderstorms, between layers of positively and negatively charged precipitation particles. For that reason, lightning inception is typically hidden from sight of camera systems used in research. Other technology such as lightning mapping systems based on radio waves can typically detect only some aspects of the...

[1] We use the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN), low‐frequency magnetic fields measured at Duke University, and storm intensity data (winds and central pressure) to examine the polarity and energetics of lightning within 100 km of the centers (inner core regions) of North Atlantic hurricanes Emily, Katrina, and Rita (2005). WWLLN provides the lightning locations. Polarities, peak c...

Pyrocumulus clouds above three Colorado wildfires (Hewlett Gulch, High Park, and Waldo Canyon; all during the summer of 2012) electrified and produced localized intracloud discharges whenever the smoke plumes grew above 10km MSL (approximately 2458C). Vertical development occurred during periods of rapid wildfire growth, as indicated by the shortwave infrared channel on a geostationary satellit...

INTRODUCTION Lightning is the second most common storm-related cause of death. The mortality following lightning strike is 10% to 30% and a large proportion of these people suffer cardiopulmonary arrest at the time of the strike. Much less commonly, solid organ injuries occur from either primary or secondary blunt force trauma. CASE PRESENTATION To the best of our knowledge, this is the first...

Lightning strikes to flammable materials in Offshore Oil Installations (OOI) can cause devastating accidents. Explosions from flammable materials are a personnel safety danger. Loss of function and loss of production due to upsets of analog and digital low voltage systems is another. This paper describes the underlying basis for guidance of protection of Offshore Oil Installations (OOI) from di...

Recently a new concept of umbrella–ladder combination system to exploit the high altitude wind energy has been proposed. In this system the polyethylene polymer transmission tether plays an important role as the connection between the high altitude wind power absorber and the ground station. To make the concept practical, whether the tether would lead lightning to the ground station is one of t...

In recent years, with the rapid development of offshore wind turbines (WTs), the problem of lightning strikes has become more and more prominent. In order to reduce the failure rate caused by the transient overvoltage of lightning struck offshore WTs, the influencing factors and the response rules of transient overvoltage are analyzed. In this paper, a new integrated electromagnetic transient m...

Abstract— In this paper, input impedance of a vertical rod under lightning stroke is first computed by applying the method of moments (MoM) on the Maxwell’s equations. The circuit model is then achieved through applying modified vector fitting (MVF) on the computed input impedance. After then the equivalent circuit is again extracted for a few values of soil conductivity and rod radius. Finally...

How might lightning measurements be used to improve short-term (0-24 hr) weather forecasting? We examine this question under two different prediction strategies. These include integration of lightning data into short-term forecasts (nowcasts) of convective (including severe) weather hazards and the assimilation of lightning data into cloud-resolving numerical weather prediction models. In each ...