## 3 Results
### Characterization of the Atmospheric Electrical Activity
Subsequently, a decrease was observed, followed by a new increase. In the graph on the right, we see that each one of the three periods contained fewer than 30% of the discharges, the interval between 02:40 UTC and 05:20 UTC presenting the highest number of discharges, corresponding to more than 35%. Between 00:00 UTC and 02:40 UTC, 02:40 UTC and 05:20 UTC, and 05:20 UTC and 08:00 UTC, more than 42,000, 48,000, and 38,000 discharges were recorded, respectively. Overall, 70% of the events were reported as IC discharges and 30% as CG discharges. The highest number of detected discharges corresponded to \(-\)IC. Figure 6: Lightning count on the 0.2\({}^{\circ}\) by 0.2\({}^{\circ}\) grid from 00:00 to 08:00 UTC (21:00 LT-05:00 LT). Light colors represent the location with the highest lightning count. The stars indicate the sites where the maximum peak currents of the +CG, \(-\)CG, +IC, and \(-\)IC discharges occurred. Figure 7: (**Left**) Relative frequency of lightning at UTC hour. (**Right**) Relative frequency of lightning at the period of time. For each time period, the maximum, minimum, and average peak current was calculated, as presented in Table 2. Looking at the table, we see that the IC discharges presented maximum peak current values close to 30 kA, and minimum values around 1.8 kA, with mean values of 9 kA and 10 kA for the \(-\)IC and \(+\)IC discharges, respectively. On the other hand, CG discharges had peak current values above 200 kA, minimum values of 3.5 kA and 15.00 kA, with mean values of 15 kA and 33 kA for \(-\)CG and \(+\)CG discharges, respectively. The table highlights in red the maximum values reached in each time period, which correspond to the CG discharges. The maximum peak occurred between 05:20 UTC and 08:00 UTC (02:20 LT- and 05:00 LT). To identify the locations of the maximum estimated peak currents in each time period, we generated Figure 8. This figure shows the same spatial distribution as Figure 6, but for different time periods. Looking at each plot in the figure, we see that, from 00:00 UTC-02:40 UTC and 05:20 UTC-08:00 UTC, the maximum peak current values for \(+\)IC, \(-\)CG, and \(+\)CG were located over the most-developed cell corresponding to the southeast storm, near the maximum lightning count. The maximum peak current for \(-\)IC was located during the period 00:00 UTC-02:40 UTC over the least-developed cell, corresponding to the central region storm. For the period 05:20 UTC-08:00 UTC, it was located over the southeast storm, near the maximum lightning count. In contrast to the other time periods, between 02:40 UTC and 05:20 UTC, the maximum peak current values for \(+\)IC, \(-\)IC, \(-\)CG, and \(+\)CG were located over the central region storm (see Figure 8b), far from the area with the highest lightning counts. The following serves as a summary:  
* More than 70% of the discharges were of the IC type, mainly of negative polarity. This result is in agreement with the overall ratio given in the literature, in which, although dependent on the type of storm, the latitude, and other parameters, CG discharges \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & & & \multicolumn{6}{c}{**Peak Currents (kA)**} \\ \hline
**UTC Time Period** & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**00:00–02:40**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**02:40–05:20**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**05-20–08:00**} \\ \hline
**Types of Discharges** & **Avg** & **Max** & **Min** & **Avg** & **Max** & **Min** & **Avg** & **Max** & **Min** \\ \hline \(-\)IC & \(-9.8\) & \(-29.9\) & \(-2.2\) & \(-9.1\) & \(-29.9\) & \(-1.7\) & \(-9.8\) & \(-29.9\) & \(-1.7\) \\ \(+\)IC & \(11.5\) & \(29.9\) & \(2.29\) & \(10.5\) & \(29.9\) & \(1.8\) & \(10.7\) & \(29.9\) & \(1.4\) \\ \(-\)CG & \(-15.8\) & \(-219.2\) & \(-3.5\) & \(-14.4\) & \(-214.13\) & \(-3.5\) & \(-20.2\) & \(-267.3\) & \(-3.5\) \\ \(+\)CG & \(31.5\) & \(181.5\) & \(15.0\) & \(34.0\) & \(211.1\) & \(15.0\) & \(33.9\) & \(322.6\) & \(15.0\) \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Statistical table of estimated peak current for each period of time. Table created by author.