• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Any Correlation between Superbolts and Hail?

Ahmad B

Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 9, 2022
Messages
5
Location
Canada
Hello all,

I came across a publication studying the distribution of superbolts (lightning bolts with at least a thousand times the energy of the average bolt): Error - Cookies Turned Off . I was trying to study this kind of bolts further and understand why they are this bright and powerful, but I couldn't find many resources exploring this. One online resource I found about lightning in general was this: True Facts About Lightning - Weather Geeks , and one thing they mention is that blue lightning is usually correlated with a high precipitation storm with chances of hail.

This got me thinking: is there any correlation at all between the formation of hail in a storm and the power or probability of lightning? Since I couldn't find an academic reference, I thought more experienced people like yourselves might have an answer.

Thank you!
 
After shooting a few of these over the years, I call them "SMD" or "Single Massive Discharge." I suppose a cloud is like a battery. It can build up a large amount of energy and for various reasons it may not be able to connect the leaders until the right conditions are met. Here is a picture of most intense one I ever photographed near Tucson. The cloud kept flashing until it emitted one insane discharge.


L12.jpg
 
Wowowow! Amazing picture!!! Thanks for sharing.
It does seem like your battery analogy is accurate, but I still can't figure out where hail comes in in this battery. Like, does it increase the intensity? Does it decrease it? Does it not matter?... It's a very intriguing aspect of the structure of bolt-emitting clouds to me, and I can't seem to find an answer (in my limited research).
 
This got me thinking: is there any correlation at all between the formation of hail in a storm and the power or probability of lightning? Since I couldn't find an academic reference, I thought more experienced people like yourselves might have an answer.
I am not aware of published papers on this, but I don't think there is a correlation between hail and probability of lightning as I have seen storms that have hail and little to no lightning or vise versa. As chasers we often think of both hail and lightning as indicators of storm strength, although that probably isn't always right either (see Is lightning the best indicator of severe thunderstorm intensity? - The Washington Post ) .
 
On the other hand, Lightning Basics details the prevailing idea about how lightning forms ... see the section called "What causes lightning?" ... hail/graupel/ice crystal collisions are a big part of the process according to the prevailing theory . See also https://www.ess.uci.edu/~yu/class/ess124/Lecture.20-22.H_L_D.all.pdf ... slide 10 ... " Lighter crystals collide with heavy hailstones in the cloud" . Hail does not always reach the ground (which would explain why you don't see hail at the ground from all lightning producers), but, using the ideas here, if your storm is not producing hail, there won't be lightning. However, as Randy said, there is no known correlation between hail size and lightning strength (as far as I know).
 
Your explanation and the references you provide are extremely helpful; I can't thank you enough! The final conclusion, then, is that hail does play a major role in the creation of lightning. However, it plays this role in the cloud itself, and that's why we don't always see hail when lightning forms in a storm. This helps more than you can imagine :)
 
Lightning is also created in dust storms and during volcanic eruptions, without hail. It involves the basic physics of objects or particles colliding. There are others on this site who can explain the process in detail better than me. Here is a great article about dust storm-generated lightning.

 
This is also extremely helpful! Thanks a lot :) I think I'm starting to understand the process better thanks to this thread.
 
I read through some of the linked articles(might go back to the others later as tome allows). This is a good thread with interesting stuff!

--
I knew volcanoes erupting created lightning, but didn't know dust storms could first time I've about that. (not surprised though...all that dry dust/dirt blowing around in the air certainly seems like something that could generate a static charge...)
 
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