Sprites observation in Uganda.
Abstract
Sprites are some of the TLEs that are manifested above thunderclouds having high lightning activity most especially positive cloud-to-ground lightning. Africa is a lightning-rich continent (Christian, et al., 2003) though there are few observation of sprites that have been documented in literature. This report forms a basis for sprites observation in Uganda. In this study, two datasets were used, that is; TAHMO dataset and TRMM-LIS dataset. In TAHMO lightning dataset, mean monthly lightning events were obtained for four stations in Uganda (Entebbe Airport Met, Iganga Girls Secondary School, Mityana Secondary School, Ndejje Senior Secondary School,and Bugema University) and with the help on their corresponding latitudes and longitudes, the station with the highest lightning events were obtained on the map of Uganda. For TRMM-LIS lightning dataset; VHRAC, VHRFC and VHRSC lightning events for Uganda were visualized on the map indicating the regions with the highest lightning events and the lowest ones. In comparison of the two datasets, regions near Lake Victoria and its islands have high lightning event thus a suitable location for viewing sprites.