Observation of a Natural Cloud-to-ground Lightning with Multiple Return Strokes

A field experiment on artificially rocket-triggered lightning and natural lightning observation is conducted in summer of 2006 in Conghua, Guangdong. The luminosity characteristics of lighting discharges are observed simultaneously by using a video camera and a Redlake MotionPro HS-4 high-speed camera which consists of a 512×512 pin photodiode array module. A cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning with 13 return strokes (RS) is observed by using the high-speed camera with a frame rate of 5000 frames per second at 16:52:51 Aug 1, 2006. The distance from the high-speed camera to the flash is about 2.1 km. The record of the electric field on the surface of the earth shows that this CG lightning discharge transports the negative charge in cloud to the ground. All of the 13 strokes propagate along the same main channel and have one ground termination.The duration of this flash is 822.4 ms. The peak luminance of the 2nd, 3rd, and 8th return strokes are brighter than that of the first one, being 25% of all 12 subsequent return strokes. Of the 13 strokes, 6 (46 %) present some luminosity persistence after the return stroke frame. The durations of 2 persistence luminosity are in excess of 40 ms (CC (continuing current) following 9th stroke:157.6 ms; CC follow ing 10th stroke:221 ms).There are 17 Mcomponents occurring during the 6 continuing current occurrences. The luminosity characteristics of 3 leaders are examined. The average speed of the stepped leader is 2.23×106 m/s. It is a β-type leader according to the previous results which the stepped leader emerges from the cloud base and develops with a high average speed of the order of 10⁶ m/s. The speed of the attempted leader before the 4th return stroke exhibits the decrease as it develops down toward the ground.The speed of the dart-stepped leader before the 13th return stroke appears to increase as it approaches the ground. Cut-off time is the time when the lightning channel shows no luminosity between two adjacent return strokes. In other words, it is the sum of the time from the frame that the previous return stroke and the CC followed disappears to the frame that the next return stroke is observed. Total luminosity is the sum of luminance of the frames including the return stroke and the CC followed. It is found that the cut-off time before a subsequent return stroke exhibits a consistent trend with the total luminosity of this subsequent return stroke and the CC followed (although there is no fixed proportionality between them), especially there is a proportionality relationship between them after the 9th return stroke. The geometric average of 17 Mcomponents' lasting time is 1.28 ms, and that of 11 intervals between the consecutive M-components is 1.69 ms.