Comparison of Storm and Flash Detection by a Satellite Optical System and Network Field Change Sensor System

The extended lifetime of LIS on the TRMM Mission and the recent installation of the EDOTX sensor system in the Great Plains of the USA provide an opportunity to compare these sets of storm detection and flash location data. The LIS records optical signals emerging through the top of a thunderstorm, while the EDOTX network senses electric field changes from a variety of processes internal to a thunderstorm. On the occasions when the National Lightning Detection Network also identifies a lightning stroke coincident with the other two sensors, error triangles are plotted to illustrate these three determinations of the location of a single event. Subsets are extracted to compare only those lightning events that are within the instantaneous field of view of LIS. Because each system senses a different aspect of a lightning flash, each system can be used to locate the position of an active storm even though they often do not record the same flash. The cases when one system does not detect the same storm as the others will also be examined.