Analysis of the charge transferred by lightning during Catalonia (Spain) thunderstorms

Abstract

Knowledge of lightning parameters related to electrical atmospheric discharges are essential to predict the severity such as over voltages in power lines or other damages. Today the availability of statistical data related to lightning is still important in order to infer the severity of particular situations such as an engineering design. One of the lightning parameters useful for engineering is the total electric charge related to the entire flash. This paper presents estimations of the total charge deposited by lightning as a result of the analysis of the electric field changes due to lightning.