How lightning is started in thunderstorms is poorly known. With a newly-developed 3D mapping and polarization system, physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory observed that some lightning flashes were not only started with the positive fast discharge, but it was followed immediately by an even faster and more extensive negative discharge. Surprisingly, the signal polarization is slanted from the discharge propagation direction, and the polarization for the two opposite discharges rotate from each other, showing that the initiating fast discharges were not solely driven by the storm electric field. The authors analyzed these observations with a cosmic-ray shower and found that these seemingly strange features can be consistently explained.
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