Positive Streamer Photo

[Warren Faidley]

Great shots everyone... Scott.. really nice close-up.

Here are some AZ close-ups.


University of AZ.

From my balcony.

The gasoline tank farm shot... 400 ft. away. No streamers but you cannot always be too picky!

 

[Richard Dickson]

Let's assume that near-storm flow (since the storm itself may significantly enhance winds near itself) is 20 m/s near cloud base. I'm not a lightning guy, but if we say that a lightning strike may several dart leaders and return strokes lasts a total of 1.5 seconds, mere advection of the channel by the wind would be 30 m. If the strike is close and/or one is using a long focal length lens, you should be able to perceive the 30 m distance, I'd imagine.

Regardless, some fantastic lightning photos in here!

I had the time to do some online checking and found the following along with some sources:

Ribbon lightning

Ribbon lightning occurs in thunderstorms with high cross winds and multiple return strokes. The wind will blow each successive return stroke slightly to one side of the previous return stroke, causing a ribbon effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Ribbon_lightning
http://www.electricalfun.com/lightning.htm
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/tstorm/lightning4.html

At least we now known what to call the phenomena.

 

[Paul Knightley]

There are some great shots of leaders in this thread. On some occasions, however, 'leaders' are nothing more than internal reflections within the camera's lenses - this seems to be more common on videos. In these cases, though, they look like genuine leaders.

 

[Glenn Rivers]

Lightning Advection

It is interesting to note that the Geremy Jones Shot shows that the top of the captured portion of the CG seemed to blow to the right more than the part of the channel lower down.

If this picture was taken where I think it was, this could say something about the low level of the wind profile. I am guessing that the dirt road on the far left of the picture goes west, and that the picture was taken to the south of any FFD precip in the inflow dominated region.

If the low level wind was blowing from the SE (towards the CG near ground level), and was veering sharply to S or SW a couple of kft AGL (near the top of the CG bolt) one would expect the increase of lightning advection towards the right with hight.

Does this seem posible?