This project will establish a new program of close-range optical and electromagnetic observations of cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning, to be obtained simultaneously with longer-range observations of entire in-cloud discharge processes that occur before, during, and after CG flashes. The primary scientific goal is to determine how various characteristics of the CG component of lightning flashes, observed with high time resolution, relate to the entire in-cloud discharge process. To accomplish this goal, a cost-effective long-term observing capability will be established in the observatory at the new National Weather Center Building on the campus of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK. Cloud-to-ground flashes will be observed by means of a streak-film camera, a photodiode array, and broadband electric-field-change (""slow"" and ""fast"") antennas. The work will take advantage of several existing operational facilities for lightning and severe-storm research in central Oklahoma. These include the Oklahoma Lightning Mapping Array, and existing optical observing systems on loan from the University of Florida. In addition, there will be collaboration with colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. They operate the Los Alamos Sferics Array, an extended research-grade lightning location and characterization system that covers central Oklahoma, and the FORTE satellite, with optical lightning detectors on board, which periodically passes over the region.
The establishment of this unique long-term observing capability will provide an unprecedented opportunity to study lightning in a variety of storms in all seasons over a relatively long period of time. This program of research will document and enhance quantitative understanding of CG lightning flashes by providing new detailed and coordinated observations of various features of flashes that have been reported anecdotally and qualitatively by previous lightning observers. In the future, whenever observational thunderstorm field campaigns are undertaken in central Oklahoma, high-quality optical and electromagnetic CG lightning observations will be possible at little additional cost to these future programs.
Finally, the project will take advantage of ongoing National Weather Center outreach and education programs to engage in mentorship of undergraduate and high-school students, with a special effort to involve Native American students.
