Statistical Properties of Electric Fields Produced by Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Return Strokes

For the past five years, Inha University has been observing the electric fields produced by cloud-to-ground return strokes. This paper presents the summary of most recent results. Statistics on the zero-to-peak rise time, the zero-to-zero crossing time and the amplitude ratio of the second peak in the opposite polarity to the first peak were examined. The radiation electric fields produced by distant cloud-to-ground return strokes were substantially same pattern. The first return stroke field starts with a slowly increasing front and rises abruptly to peak. The rising portions of the electric fields produced by cloud-to-ground return strokes last 1 $mutextrm{s}$ to a few $mutextrm{s}$. The mean values of the zero-to-peak rise times of electric fields were 5.72 $mutextrm{s}$ and 4.12 $mutextrm{s}$ for the positive and the negative cloud-to-ground return strokes, respectively. The mean of the zero-to-zero crossing time for the positive return strokes was 29.48 $mutextrm{s}$ compared with 38.54 $mutextrm{s}$ for the negative return strokes. The depths of the dip after the peak of return stroke electric fields also have the dependence on the polarity of cloud-to-ground return stroke, and the mean values for the positive and negative cloud-to-ground return strokes were 33.55 and 28.19%, respectively.