A Delayed Return Stroke Driven by Channel Charge Accumulation

Abstract Based on combined VHF interferometer and fast/slow antenna measurements, we document an abnormal bolt‐from‐the‐blue lightning flash, which included two strokes. There are four successive attempted dart leaders following the first return stroke. The last detected downward leader stopped advancing at approximately 94 m and decayed. Then, a fast upward breakdown initiated 2.29 ms after it stopped, developing along the preexisting channel toward the cloud, propagating with a speed of 4.9 × 10 7 m/s along the vertical portion of the channel. Electrostatic field changes revealed that negative charge transferred by previous attempted dart leaders had accumulated within the decaying channel. The accumulated charge was comparable to that later transferred to ground by the delayed return stroke, which itself was accompanied by a long continuing current. We term this event ‘delayed return stroke’. This phenomenon illustrates the independent influence of residual charge within the decaying channel on later discharge processes.

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Publication Details

Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Published
2026-07-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1029/2026gl123981
Primary Topic
Lightning and Electromagnetic Phenomena
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

A Delayed Return Stroke Driven by Channel Charge Accumulation

Rubin Jiang, Xiushu Qie, Shanfeng Yuan, Dongxia Liu et al.
Geophysical Research Letters
Lightning and Electromagnetic Phenomena
article

A Delayed Return Stroke Driven by Channel Charge Accumulation

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article en

Abstract

Abstract Based on combined VHF interferometer and fast/slow antenna measurements, we document an abnormal bolt‐from‐the‐blue lightning flash, which included two strokes. There are four successive attempted dart leaders following the first return stroke. The last detected downward leader stopped advancing at approximately 94 m and decayed. Then, a fast upward breakdown initiated 2.29 ms after it stopped, developing along the preexisting channel toward the cloud, propagating with a speed of 4.9 × 10 7 m/s along the vertical portion of the channel. Electrostatic field changes revealed that negative charge transferred by previous attempted dart leaders had accumulated within the decaying channel. The accumulated charge was comparable to that later transferred to ground by the delayed return stroke, which itself was accompanied by a long continuing current. We term this event ‘delayed return stroke’. This phenomenon illustrates the independent influence of residual charge within the decaying channel on later discharge processes.

Geophysical Research LettersVol. 53(14)
China Meteorological Administration (CN), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (CN), Yangzhou Vocational University (CN), Guizhou Electric Power Design and Research Institute (CN), Institute of Atmospheric Physics (CN), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), China Electric Power Research Institute, Yangzhou University (CN), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Openalex Percentile: Top 9%
Lightning and Electromagnetic Phenomena
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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