Lightning Detection at Aragats Station Karen Arakelyan David

Lightning Detection at Aragats Station Karen Arakelyan, David Pokhsraryan, David Sargsyan, Alikhanian National Laboratory, Armenia.

Boltek EFM-100 Electric Field Monitor Electric Field Range: Accuracy: Response Time: -20 k. V/m to +20 k. V/m +/- 0. 05 k. V/m 0. 1 seconds Analog Data Output: 1 V per k. V/m Interface: Fiber optic cable to USB/RS 232

Field Mill Block Diagram

Monitoring Software Log date, time and distance of nearby lightning. Monitor lightning up to 38 km away. Detect the high electric field conditions which precede lightning.

Boltek Storm Tracker Lightning Detection System Direction-finding antenna provides direction information. Storm distance is calculated from received signal strength. Special processing in software reduces the effects of strike-to-strike energy variations providing more accurate distance information.

Lightning Power Spectrum The bandwidth of the our system is 100 -700 k. Hz

Lightning Monotoring System • Plots the real time data on a map • Allows to replay the previous archived data in accelerated time. • • • Timestamp in seconds since midnight Timestamp in milliseconds Bearing to strike Distance to strike Strike type -> CG or IC Strike polarity -> positive or negative

Custom Software For offline analysis a custom software was developed under Lab. View. • Extract data from archived file • Create strike counts time series • Select a radius of monitoring • Filter data by type ( CG+, IC-, CG-)

Event on 23. 08. 2010

Event on 26. 08. 2010

Event on 26. 08. 2010

Event on 23. 08. 2010

CONCLUSIONS The lightning detection system and electric field meter facilities are operating at Aragats mountain and providing additional data to those obtained by particle detectors for investigation of thunderstorm events. These data are storing in the central file server and are accessible for monitoring and processing.