Some Properties of Negative Cloud-to-Ground Flashes over North Anhui Based on Continuous Electromagnetic Field Observations

  • XU Weiwei ,
  • LI Zaiguang ,
  • ZHU Baoyou ,
  • MA Ming
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  • Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

Received date: 2013-07-01

  Online published: 2015-06-28

Abstract

By analyzing wideband electromagnetic field waveform records obtained by the system capable of recording electric and magnetic field of distant lightning discharges in a continuous manner, overall 3141 negative cloud-to-ground flashes were identified through manual selection for a thunderstorm occurred in Anhui, Huaibei Area on 9 July 2012, among which 15.5% contained only single stroke. The maximum number of strokes per flash was 18 and the average number of strokes per flash was 4.2. The percentage of single-stroke flash and the mean number of strokes per flash showed significant variations during the storm life cycle. The average duration of the negative flashes was 363.7 ms. 10031 inter-stroke intervals gave a geometric mean value of 75.3 ms. It seemed that CG flashes during active stage had slightly shorter intervals than other stages. The amplitude ratio of subsequent stroke to the first stroke presented a geometric mean of 0.49 for 10031 subsequent strokes, confirming that subsequent strokes were generally much weaker than first return stroke. However, the cases of amplitude of subsequent strokes greater than which of first return strokes is not rare. Our data indicated that about 34.8% of multiple-stroke flashes contained at least one subsequent stroke whose amplitude is greater than that of the first stroke and 19.7% of all subsequent strokes whose amplitude is greater than first return strokes. Both the relative amplitude and the preceding time interval of subsequent strokes showed a significant dependence on the stroke order. About 38.6% of negative cloud-to-ground flashes were observed to associate with discernible bipolar pulse activities of preliminary breakdown, with a geometric mean value of 2.3 ms preceding the first strokes.

Cite this article

XU Weiwei , LI Zaiguang , ZHU Baoyou , MA Ming . Some Properties of Negative Cloud-to-Ground Flashes over North Anhui Based on Continuous Electromagnetic Field Observations[J]. Plateau Meteorology, 2015 , 34(3) : 850 -862 . DOI: 10.7522/j.issn.1000-0534.2013.00198

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