Getting a solid view of lightning Space Science News home
Getting a solid view of lightning New Mexico team develops
system to depict lightning in three dimensions One of a series
of stories covering the quadrennial International Conference on
Atmospheric Electricity, June 7-11, 1999, in Guntersville, Ala.
For most of us observing lightning - from a safe distance or
inside a building - a lightning bolt is a flat, two-dimensional
creature painted against a distant backdrop. But as researchers
have shown over the last three decades, lightning has a complex
shape that may let scientist pry a few secrets from a storm -
including where a tornado might form. Left: Just a bolt straight
down? Is it pointing towards the viewer, or away? And what about
the big ones that get away, the cloud-to-cloud flashes that are
not seen on the ground? Credit: NOAA A number of techniques have
been developed over the years to look at the 3-D structure,"
said William Rison of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and
Technology in Socorr