A Weighted Gridding Method for the Long-Range Lightning Location Network Accuracy Evaluation

Abstract:
Location accuracy is an important index to evaluate the performance of the very low frequency long-range lightning location network (VLF-LLN). However, it is impossible for us to evaluate the location accuracy of any area of the location network objectively and fairly by relying on real lightning observation data. Based on two-year lightning data of a newly built long-range lightning location network, we propose a weighted gridding method for evaluating the location network accuracy, which is different from the Monte Carlo method. We complete the following research and the results suggest the conclusions: 1) taking the location results of 11-station synchronization as a reference, it is found that the different numbers and configurations of stations have much more effect on the location results outside the network than those inside, and the deviation distance decreases with the increase of station numbers. 2) The location results of the 11-station and 13-station synchronizations were assumed to be the reference stroke points, the results of 5- to 10-station synchronizations were relocated, and the probability of deviation distance less than 1 km, 3 km, 5 km and 7 km were calculated. It is found that the proportion of the deviation distance is similar for these references, when the station numbers exceed 7-8, the median location results approximately reach a constant value, while the distribution of data samples is relatively scattered. 3) the location deviation of a large lightning samples is analyzed to statistically evaluate the location accuracy of any grid of the network by weighted gridding method, and present the percentage of deviation distance less than specific location accuracy for each grid of the network.