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Rapidly occurring short duration discharges in thunderstorms, as indicators of a lightning‐triggering mechanism
Author(s) -
Mazur Vladislav
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/gl013i004p00355
Subject(s) - thunderstorm , lightning (connector) , radar , meteorology , storm , environmental science , altitude (triangle) , atmospheric sciences , upper atmospheric lightning , geology , lightning strike , physics , telecommunications , power (physics) , geometry , mathematics , quantum mechanics , computer science
Unusual rapidly occurring and small‐scale discharges in a narrow (1‐2 km) region inside the most electrically active part of a thunderstorm, observed with a VHF‐band (2 m wavelength) radar in East Georgia, USSR, were relatively stationary on the radar display, and had a maximum rate of about 200 per minute, an average duration of 12.5 ms, an estimated radar cross section a fraction of a meter to a few meters square, and an estimated length of a few meters to tens of meters. Occurrence of quasi‐stable discharges coincided with period of the highest altitude of the 50 dBZ‐reflectivity core. It is proposed that the quasi‐stable discharges are long sparks produced by the natural lightning‐triggering mechanism inside the storm. This hypothesis appears to support observations on triggered lightning in the United States obtained with an instrumented aircraft and wire‐trailing rockets.