Space Shuttle Video Images: An Example of Warm Cloud Lightning

Abstract

Warm cloud lightning has been reported in several tropical locations. We have been using the intensified monochrome TV cameras at night during a number of shuttle flights to observe large active thunderstorms and their associated lightning. During a nighttime orbital pass of the STS-70 mission on 17 July 1995 at 07:57:42 GMT, the controllers obtained video imagery of a small cloud that was producing lightning. Data from a GOES infrared image establishes that the cloud top had a temperature of about 271 degrees Kelvin ( -2 degrees Celsius). Since this cloud was electrified to the extent that a lightning discharge did occur, it may be another case of lightning in a cloud that presents little if any evidence of frozen or melting precipitation.