In effect, the transmitter is moving through the sky, sending a new signal from each point. Each is recorded and, when the storm is reconstructed in a computer, becomes an individual point in a three-dimensional grid. The points are color coded to help the human eye follow a bolt's path across the sky. Scientists discuss biology, safety, and statistics of lightning strikes. Poster papers on hurricanes and tornadoes summarized.
Thunderstorms generate elusive and mysterious sprites.
Preview of the 11th International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity. The data plots also can be used to show where lightning occurs most often within a storm, matching lightning activity to storm structure, including convection. The results are impressive and highly promising, Rison said. The negative charge was at about 6 km altitude, and the positive charge was at 9 to 10 km. When discharge occurred when electric potential between the two regions became great enough to ionize a channel through air and become as conductive as a metal wire.