SUMMARY: Full Operations. Two MCS Make 17 Sprites Over LMA! Increasing shear and some CAPE allowed numerous MCS to form over High Plains and move east. The cells produced severe weather (hail, mesos, TVS) and had tops to 65,000 ft. Severe t-storm watches for northern Kansas at night. Moon a major problem…rose right into field of view at 0400 as sprites were occurring. Split the several cameras to try to maintain coverage. Use ND filter on GEN III unit. Stanford operates-camera problems, may not have any. Many of the sprites looked like tall c-sprites. Had pretty good cloud flash viewing but hard to see evidence of spiders at that range. Sampled VLF audio only as moon just too bright for any PMTs. Mark was clouded in during sprite times. Sprites actually came from two MCS. The first passed through the LMA and began spriting as it went into its decaying stages some 100-150 km east of GLD as the stratiform developed. The second system moved into the LMA from Colorado and intensified after dark. It had tops to 650,00, a TVS, hail and was more of a large supercellular structure initially. As it began to enlarge there were a burst of sprites. No elves noted. VLF audio was very complex and loud. STEPS over. CHILL LMA still runs.

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(S) = Sprite; (E) = Elve; (B) = Blue Jet; (CF/CG) = Cloud/Ground flash; (M)=Meteor

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00-201

19 July 2000

Sprite Times

03:48:54.057 [S]

03:56:10.205 [S]

05:51:23.293 [S]

05:56:06.885 [S]

05:57:29.417 [S]

05:58:00.495 [S]

05:50:30.469 [S]

06:00:15.364 [S]

06:00:55.138 [S]

06:04:22.595 [S]

06:10:41.581 [S]

06:11:15.906 [S]

06:15:44.154 [S]

06:22:10.969 [S]

06:50:38.808 [S]

06:52:31.811 [S]

07:11:39.755 [S]