Satellite observations of transient radio impulses from thunderstorms

Transient radio emissions from thunderstorms detected by satellites were first reported in 1995. The nature and source of these emissions remained a mystery until the launch of the FORTE satellite in 1997. FORTE, with its more sophisticated triggering and larger memory capacity showed that these emissions were connected to major thunderstorm systems. The analysis reported here, connecting FORTE RF events with ground based lightning location data from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN), shows that localized regions within thunderstorms are responsible for the creation of the satellite detected rf signals. These regions are connected with the areas of strong radar returns from the NEXRAD Doppler radar system, indicating that they are from regions of intense convection. The authors will also show data from several storms detected in the extended Caribbean, in which the height profile of the source regions can be determined. Although as a single low earth orbit satellite FORTE cannot provide global coverage of thunderstorm/lightning events, follow-on satellite constellations should be able to provide detailed information on global lightning in near real-time.