A&M professor explains lightning detection system

Texas A&M professor Richard Orville explains how the newly upgraded Lightning Mapping Array detects lightning activity within 100 miles of Houston. Orville said the new system is "the best in the world."

[charlessmith]

Keenly, the professor is thinking that in a thunderstorm, intracloud lightning discharges explode first in the clouds only with the positive charges in the low part of the cloud, and the negative charges in the high part of the cloud - but as the cumulonimbi (or CBs) from the thunderstorm grows further, negative charges line up at the surface under the CBs, leading to the threat of CG (cloud-to-ground) strikes.