edu.ucar.opensky::articles:21273 UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact 2025-12-25T16:08:04.378473 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata - Part 2: Extensions for Imagery and Gridded Data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7v69n6x The evolution and structure of extreme optical lightning flashes 2017-12-27T00:00:00Z publication https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7v69n6x https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JD026855 Peterson, M. author Rudlosky, S. author Deierling, Wiebke author UCAR/NCAR - Library publisher This study documents the composition, morphology, and motion of extreme optical lightning flashes observed by the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS). The furthest separation of LIS events (groups) in any flash is 135 km (89 km), the flash with the largest footprint had an illuminated area of 10,604 km(2), and the most dendritic flash has 234 visible branches. The longest-duration convective LIS flash lasted 28s and is overgrouped and not physical. The longest-duration convective-to-stratiform propagating flash lasted 7.4s, while the longest-duration entirely stratiform flash lasted 4.3s. The longest series of nearly consecutive groups in time lasted 242 ms. The most radiant recorded LIS group (i.e., superbolt) is 735 times more radiant than the average group. Factors that impact these optical measures of flash morphology and evolution are discussed. While it is apparent that LIS can record the horizontal development of the lightning channel in some cases, radiative transfer within the cloud limits the flash extent and level of detail measured from orbit. These analyses nonetheless suggest that lightning imagers such as LIS and Geostationary Lightning Mapper can complement ground-based lightning locating systems for studying physical lightning phenomena across large geospatial domains. UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact PDF Text theme Resource Type 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z publication Copyright 2017 American Geophysical Union. None eng geoscientificInformation