A Novel Method for Lightning Prediction by Direct Electric Field Measurements at the Ground Using Recurrent Neural Network

A method to predict lightning by machine learning analysis of atmospheric electric fields is proposed for the first time. In this study, we calculated an anomaly score with long short-term memory (LSTM), a recurrent neural network analysis method, using electric field data recorded every second on the ground. The threshold value of the anomaly score was defined, and a lightning alarm at the observation point was issued or canceled. Using this method, it was confirmed that 88.9% of lightning occurred while alarming. These results suggest that a lightning prediction system with an electric field sensor and machine learning can be developed in the future.