Striking Distance Characteristics of Lightning Flashes Striking at and Below the Top of the Canton Tower

Abstract A total of 19 lightning flashes observed by high‐speed video cameras were selected for analyzing the two‐dimensional striking distance (SD) before the first return stroke of downward negative cloud‐to‐ground lightning flashes striking at the Canton Tower (CT) (600 m high). Among them, 13 lightning flashes directly struck at the top of the CT, and six lightning flashes struck at positions 8–146 m below the top of the CT. It was found that the higher the lightning strike position at the CT, the longer the SD, and the closer it is to the top of the tower, the faster the SD increases. On average, the first return stroke peak current for the lightning striking at the top of the CT was 86 kA, while the average value for side‐strike lightning was less than 33 kA, with only about 38% of the former.