Thunderstorm Electric Potential Profiles: Electrical Evolution and Lightning Energy

From a balloon sounding of electric field through a thunderstorm, one can calculate the vertical profile of potential, V, within the storm. In this presentation we investigate thunderstorm electrical evolution by examining V profiles through various stages of a storm's life. We present data from New Mexico mountain thunderstorms in which we made a series of 4 to 6 balloon soundings. Several of the successive V profiles in the same storm are quite similar, in spite of the numerous lightning flashes that occurred during the balloon flights. These similarities suggest that the V profiles are reasonable estimates of the in-cloud potential. The similar profiles occur during the mature phase of the storm, and mature phase profiles are even similar from one storm to another. This is true despite different lightning flashing rates and, presumably, different charge generation rates in the different storms. Another result of this work is that potential profiles during the early and late stages of the storm do not resemble those from the mature stage. Recently, Coleman et al. [2003] showed that intra-cloud (IC) flashes connect potential extrema of opposite polarity and that normal (negative) cloud-to-ground (CG) flashes connect a potential minimum to ground. Thus we can use the V profiles to estimate the potential difference spanned by lightning flashes during the evolution of the storm and, with this, estimate the lightning energy. Typical potential differences spanned by IC and CG flashes will be presented from four storms. Reference: Coleman, L.M., T.C. Marshall, M. Stolzenburg, T. Hamlin, P.R. Krehbiel, W. Rison, and R.J. Thomas, Effects of charge and electrostatic potential on lightning propagation, J. Geophys. Res., 108, doi:10.1029/2002JD002718, 2003.