New research capabilities of a fully portable LMA designed for short-fuse targets Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology

A new, purely portable Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) has been assembled for deployments ranging in duration from days to months as needed to meet a variety of project goals and enable collaboration with larger, semi-nomadic field projects. The stations have been designed with only a few major components to assemble and check on for deployment, such that the largest restriction for the network deployment time is the time necessary for driving between locations. The array has enabled the sampling of lightning in a variety of storm modes and ground-truth measurements for testing changes to a permanent network. So far, it has been used for (1) a short-term array deployed at various pre-designated locations in the southeast United States with the Propagation, Evolution, and Rotation in Linear Storms (PERiLS) project, (2) a short-term array at locations determined by the forecasted landfall location of Hurricane Ian, (3) supplemental components of the existing Oklahoma LMA, and (4) a contribution for a larger LMA throughout a winter season during a winter season field campaign (Lake Effect Electrification (LEE) project). Station design and deployment procedures have been refined throughout these projects to enable smoother array deployments in the future. Network logistics and example applications are shown here.