Performance Assessment of the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN), Using the Los Alamos Sferic Array (LASA) as Ground Truth

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Abstract
The World Wide Lighting Location Network (WWLLN) locates lightning globally, using sparsely distributed very low frequency (VLF) detection stations. Due to WWLLN’s detection at VLF (in this case ∼10 kHz), the lightning signals from strong strokes can propagate up to ∼104 km to WWLLN sensors and still be suitable for triggering a station. A systematic evaluation of the performance of WWLLN is undertaken, using a higher-frequency (0–500 kHz) detection array [the Los Alamos Sferic Array (LASA)] as a ground truth during an entire thunderstorm season in a geographically confined case study in Florida. It is found that (a) WWLLN stroke-detection efficiency rises sharply to several percent as the estimated lightning current amplitude surpasses ∼30 kA; (b) WWLLN spatial accuracy is around 15 km, good enough to resolve convective-storm cells within a larger storm complex; (c) WWLLN is able to detect intracloud and cloud-to-ground discharges with comparable efficiency, as long as the current is comparable; (d) WWLLN detects lightning-producing storms with high efficiency in every 3-h epoch; thus, WWLLN can be useful for locating deep convection for weather forecasting on 3-h update cycles; and (e) WWLLN detects a stroke count in each storm that is weakly proportional to the stroke count detected by LASA. Thus, to the extent that lightning rate can serve as a statistical proxy for rainfall, WWLLN may eventually provide rainfall-proxy data to be assimilated in 3-h forecast update cycles.