Time-frequency profile of discharge processes prior to the first return stroke

Abstract

We aim to investigate the time-frequency profile for sets of lightning processes that occurred prior to the first return stroke which include narrow bipolar pulses, preliminary breakdown pulses and stepped leaders. The work is mainly using the wavelet transformation in order to gain the frequency spectrum while not losing the time information of the located pulses. 2 sets of events that include the narrow bipolar pulse (NBP) followed by preliminary breakdown pulses (PBPs), stepped leaders (SLs) and the first return stroke (RS) are used in this paper. All selected data are recorded during northeastern monsoon season at the end of year 2012 in Malaysia. Parameters that used in this works includes the (1) upper and (2) lower frequency spectrum for both spectral and spread regions and (3) power spectrum. In average, the upper and lower frequency spectrum for NBP is at least 10 times higher when compare to the first return stroke. It is also found that the NBP radiates predominantly between 61 kHz and 168 kHz which much higher than the first return stroke with range from 2 kHz to 12 kHz. PBP pulses radiate intensely within 65 kHz to 1 MHz, whereas SL pulses radiate predominantly between 163 kHz and 455 kHz. In terms of power spectrum, PBP pulses tend to produce higher magnitude of power spectrum in the earlier stage and decreased towards the end of its process. In the contrary, SL pulses' power spectrum magnitudes are lower in the beginning and tend to increase when approaching to the first return stroke.