Lightning location and lower‐ionospheric height determination from two‐station magnetic field measurements

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Abstract
Lightning locations in two maritime nocturnal thunderstorms, one occurring over the Atlantic Ocean, the other over the Gulf of Mexico, were determined using wide band magnetic direction finding from Gainesville and Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Within experimental error, all lightning was found to occur within National Weather Service radar reflectivity patterns. From the lightning locations and measured arrival times of first and second sky waves at Kennedy Space Center, ionospheric reflecting heights for both sky waves were determined. Lightning distance and ionospheric height were also computed using the single‐station technique recently described by Kinzer [1974]. Kinzer's technique is shown to be very inaccurate for one of the two storms studied because effective reflecting heights for first and second sky waves were different. During a 15‐min interval, the Atlantic storm produced an average of about 6 flashes per minute, an average of about 3 strokes per flash, and a mean initial electric field peak, normalized to 100 km, of 5.4 V/m for first strokes and 3.6 V/m for subsequent strokes. During a 45‐min interval the Gulf storm produced an average of about 5 flashes per minute, an average of about 4 strokes per flash, and a mean initial peak field, normalized to 100 km, of 10.2 V/m and 5.5 V/m for first and subsequent strokes, respectively.

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