HR: 08:35h
AN: AE41A-03    [PDF]
TI: The Meteorological Setting of Narrow Bipolar Events
AU: * Stanley, M A
EM: stanleym@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, NIS-1, Space and Atmospheric Sciences, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Suszcynsky, D M
EM: dsuszcynsky@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, NIS-1, Space and Atmospheric Sciences, MS D466, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Heavner, M J
EM: heavner@uas.alaska.edu
AF: University of Alaska Southeast, 11120 Glacier Highway, Juneau, AK 99801 United States
AB: Narrow Bipolar Events (NBEs) are an impulsive form of electrical breakdown in storms which emits strong VHF radiation. It is well known that these events can be readily detected by VHF receivers in orbit and thus may provide a highly practical means to globally monitor storm activity. However, relatively little is known about how NBEs relate to the convective phase of storms and of how good a predictor they are of severe weather events such as large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes. On June 10, 2002, numerous energetic NBEs were detected over Kansas by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Edot array, which is primarily located in Florida. These NBEs were also detected by a VHF receiver on-board the SVN 54 GPS satellite. The NBEs were associated with severe thunderstorms which produced softball size hail exceeding 11 centimeters in diameter and a weak F0 tornado. In another case study, several F2 tornadic Florida storms were analyzed for March, 2001. Unlike the Kansas storms, the NBEs of the Florida tornadic storms were spread out over a much wider area and exhibited considerable variability in both frequency of occurrence and predominant polarity of vertical charge transfer. To further explore the significance of the NBE rate variability, we will analyze NEXRAD radar volume scans in conjunction with Edot 3-dimensional locations to better understand how NBEs correlate with the thunderstorm life-cycle.
DE: 3304 Atmospheric electricity
DE: 3314 Convective processes
DE: 3324 Lightning
DE: 3360 Remote sensing
SC: Atmospheric and Space Electricity [AE]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting