JACKSONVILLE, Fla – A new study at Florida Tech could help protect people at sea or along the coast from deadly lightning.
Clues to why super-charged lightning strikes may be more likely to target coastlines or the ocean were discovered after looking at the time it takes for a downward electrical channel from a thunderhead to reach the surface.
When this negative charged stepped leader touches the ground, it opens an electrical path surging up to the cloud.
Shorter stepped leaders over the ocean are associated with more power packing charge. Longer leader durations had lower amps and were more common over land.
The cloud charge structure for (at least some) oceanic storms are different than those for storms over land.
Florida Tech’s Amitabh Nag, and Kenneth L. Cummins, research professor at Florida Tech and the University of Arizona, recently published, “Negative First Stroke Leader Characteristics in Cloud to-Ground Lightning Over Land and Ocean”
The scientists analyzed lightning over parts of Florida and its coasts using data provided by the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network.
Nag and Cummins estimate that lightning with peak currents over 50 kilo amperes is twice as likely to occur in oceanic thunderstorms.