Remote measurements of lightning return stroke peak currents based on electric and acoustic signals

Lightning return-stroke peak current is one of the most important parameters for lightning protection purposes. It can be directly measured in instrumented tower facilities or using artificial-initiated lightning. Lightning peak currents can be also estimated using field-to-current empirical formulas. These formulas use the electric field peak radiation and distance between the lightning channel and the measuring station to estimate lightning peak currents. In this work, we use wideband electric fields (160 Hz -10 MHz) and acoustic measurements of 54 negative cloud to ground flashes to estimate lightning strike distance and lightning return-stoke peak currents remotely. We use the time-to-thunder method to determine the lightning strike distance. We compare our results for distance and peak current estimations with data reported by the Earth Networks Global Lightning Network (ENGLN).