Lightning Observations with the Horus Polarimetric Phased Array Radar

Lightning studies using radars have mostly consisted of observations with dish-antenna radars yielding slower update times. However, Phased Array Radars (PARs) offer much faster update times that are more likely to capture echoes from propagating lightning channels inside thunderstorms. We use rapidly updating Range Height Indicator (RHI) scans collected by the fully-digital Horus PAR while sampling severe storms that occurred in Oklahoma to examine echoes originating from lightning. Numerous lightning echoes were observed during the sampling period in good spatial and temporal agreement with Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) detections of very high frequency (VHF) radiation sources. These highly detailed lightning signatures had increased horizontal reflectivity factor, deviations in radial velocity and spectrum width, highly variable differential reflectivity and differential phase, and decreases in co-polar correlation coefficient. Results presented highlight the capability of PARs to detect lightning, supporting the study of lightning physics, and an additional tool for monitoring lightning activity.