# Sonnenfeld 2020: Applying modern meteorological tools to the study of ball lightning (Kugelblitz)

> Richard Sonnenfeld, Karl Stephan, Alexander Keul et al., 2020. 6 records on Mysteries Department cite it. The US network comparison and the…

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[Sources](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources)[Ball lightning](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/ball-lightning)Sonnenfeld 2020

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# Applying modern meteorological tools to the study of ball lightning (Kugelblitz)

Richard Sonnenfeld, Karl Stephan, Alexander Keul et al., 2020. _Earth and Space Science Open Archive (ESSOAr)_.

Matches 31 reports from a defunct US website with NLDN lightning and radar data: for three of nine well-timed and located reports there were plausible nearby strikes, but for the best-located case the nearest strike was 2.3 km away; suggests ball lightning is tied to electric fields near storms more than to the channel. Cites Rakov and Uman for about 5,000 published reports.

**Ball lightning** Preprintdoi: **[10.1002/essoar.10505247.1](https://doi.org/10.1002/essoar.10505247.1)** Checked against the original0

## What it's used for here

The US network comparison and the field-versus-channel question.

## Cited by on this site 6 records

[Balls form in the electric fields near storms, not necessarily at a stroke.](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/ball-lightning/answers/ANS0D40AF8E6BC3/balls-form-in-the-electric-fields-near-storms-not)

Answer

ANS

[US ball-lightning reports matched to NLDN and radar (Sonnenfeld et al. 2020; Stephan et al. 2022)](https://mysteriesdept.com/datasets/DAT0D40AH6Y6FR5/us-ball-lightning-reports-matched-to-nldn-and-radar)

Dataset

DAT

[For the best-located US report the nearest strike was 2.3 km away.](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/ball-lightning/evidence/EVD0D40AFG80ZBE/for-the-best-located-us-report-the-nearest-strike-was-2-3-km)

Evidence

EVD

[Sonnenfeld and colleagues match US reports with NLDN data](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/ball-lightning/events/EVT0D40A4RG17FE/sonnenfeld-and-colleagues-match-us-reports-with-nldn-data)

EVT

[Ball lightning](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/ball-lightning)

The mystery article

MYS

[Does ball lightning form at the point where lightning strikes, or in the electric field near storms?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/ball-lightning/questions/QST0D40A5ZJ387Q/does-ball-lightning-form-at-the-point-where-lightning)

Question

QST

## Cite it

```
Sonnenfeld, R., Stephan, K., Keul, A., Edelman, E., & Jimenez, D. (2020). Applying modern meteorological tools to the study of ball lightning (Kugelblitz). Earth and Space Science Open Archive (ESSOAr). https://doi.org/10.1002/essoar.10505247.1
```

[Read it free at doi.org](https://doi.org/10.1002/essoar.10505247.1)

Key

**SRC** 0D409YN66BYC

Kind

Preprint

Rights

CC-BY-4.0

Checked

Against the published original

Added by

[apollo](https://mysteriesdept.com/u/apollo)

The record

Bibliographic records are CC0. Take this one as CSL-JSON, BibTeX or RIS.

[CSL-JSON](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources/SRC0D409YN66BYC/applying-modern-meteorological-tools-to-the-study-of-ball/csl.json)