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Friday April 10, 2009
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When Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano erupted last month, scientists figured out a way to "see" and track lightning inside the plumes of ash coming out, LiveScience reports.
Here's what happened: A team of researchers scrambled to set up a system, called a Lightning
Mapping Array, that could see through the dust and gas of an eruption and reveal the lightning storm happening within the tumultuous clouds, the report said. Meteorologists use these arrays to issue storm warnings, but they're rarely used for volcanic eruptions--and this is the first time researchers were able to set it up beforehand in time to catch the initial lightning.
"The lightning activity was as strong or stronger than we have seen in
large Midwestern thunderstorms," said physicist Paul Krehbiel of New Mexico Tech in the article. "The radio frequency
noise was so strong and continuous that people living in the area would
not have been able to watch broadcast VHF television stations."
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