ARMOR and NALMA data corresponding to "Observations of anomalous charge structures in supercell thunderstorms in the Southeastern United States"

Dataset includes dual-polarization C-band University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Advanced Radar for Meteorological and Operational Research (ARMOR) data in Raw and quality-controlled Universal Format (UF) from a selected period on 10 April 2009 as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) North Alabama Lightning Mapping Array (NALMA) data in American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) format from selected period on 10 April 2009. 

The ARMOR is located at the Huntsville International Airport in Huntsville, Alabama at 34.64597, -86.77131, 200 m MSL. A set of 15 radar sampling volumes between 1712 UTC and 1821 UTC on 10 April 2009 are included in the dataset. Each of the raw and corrected UF files contains horizontal reflectivity (dBZ), differential reflectivity (dB), Doppler velocity (m s-1), spectrum width (m s-1), differential phase (°), and total power (dBZ) data. The corrected UF files additionally contain horizontal reflectivity and differential reflectivity data corrected for attenuation and differential attenuation following the methods of Bringi et al. (2001). The corrected files also contain estimated differential propagation phase (°) and computed specific differential phase (° km-1) data (Hubbert and Bringi 1995). 

ARMOR file naming conventions are as follows: 

RAW_NA_000_125_20090410171216.gz

RAW: file format

125: can scan type, where 125 indicates a full or sector volume plan position indicator 

20090410171216: date and time in the order of year, month, day, hour, minute, and second

ARMOR_20090410171216_qc1.uf.gz

ARMOR: radar name

20090410171216: date and time in the order of year (YYYY), month (MM), day (DD), hour (HH), minute (MM), and second (SS)

qc1: denotes ARMOR processed data

uf: denotes the file format 

NALMA data consist of undecimated VHF source-level lightning measurements in hourly files. The center of the network is located at 34.72461, -86.64533. The network consisted of 11 sensors distributed throughout north Alabama and south-central Tennessee. Information about contributing stations is available in the header of each hourly file, including the station location, status, and the number of sources detected by each station. Further network-specific information documented by Koshak et al. (2004) while Rison et al. (1999) discuss LMA characteristics.

Source data include information about the time the source was detected (UTC seconds of the day), latitude and longitude (decimal degrees), altitude (m), reduced chi2 value associated with post-processing (unitless), power (dBW), and a network mask indicating the detecting stations (unitless). The format is (f15.9 f10.6 f11.6f 7.1 f5.2 f5.1 4x). 

Hourly file naming conventions are as follows:

LYLOUT_090410_160000_3600.dat.gz

LYLOUT: LMA file designator

090410: date in order of last two digits of year (YY), month (MM), and day (DD)

160000: time in order of hour (HH), minute (MM), and second (SS)

3600: length of period covered in file in seconds (3600 s = 1 hour)

Acknowledgments: 

Data were collected with support from NASA MSFC Award NNM05AA22A.

References:

Bringi, V. N., Keenan, T. D., & Chandrasekar, V. (2001). Correcting C-band radar reflectivity and differential reflectivity data for rain attenuation: A self-consistent method with constraints. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 39(9), 1906–1915. https://doi.org/10.1109/36.951081

Hubbert, J., and V. N. Bringi, 1995: An iterative filtering technique for the analysis of copolar differential phase and dual-frequency radar measurements. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 12, 643–648. 

Koshak, W. J., Solakiewicz, R. J., Blakeslee, R. J., Goodman, S. J., Christian, H. J., Hall, J. M., … Cecil, D. J. (2004). North Alabama Lightning Mapping Array (LMA): VHF source retrieval algorithm and error analyses. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 21(4), 543–558. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0426(2004)021<0543:NALMAL>2.0.CO;2

Rison, W., Thomas, R. J., Krehbiel, P. R., Hamlin, T., & Harlin, J. (1999). A GPS-based three-dimensional lightning mapping system: Initial observations in Central New Mexico. Geophysical Research Letters, 26(23), 3573–3576.