Digital sferics incorporated into a weather radar system

The digital direction-finding of the sferics is reported, taking into account their recording on the same digital tape as the weather radar information, and their subsequent display in the margins of radar weather maps. Aspects of circuit performance are discussed. The use of initial polarities to identify a quadrant resulted in about half of the recorded azimuths showing agreement with the radar pattern while an equal number were reported in the opposite quadrant. Polarity errors can arise from sources in which the movement of charge in the vertical plane is opposite to that selected as a reference when assigning thresholds. Attention is also given to lightning-related precipitation parameters.