Scientists look for weather patterns connected with dry lightning to help improve forecasting

This week, smoke from the Six Rivers Complex Fire — a series of fires caused by a cluster of lightning strikes earlier this month — in Humboldt and Trinity County has drifted south through the Central Valley. The far-reaching effect of those remote lightning strikes similar to the Aug. 5 cluster that sparked the Six Rivers Complex is just one example of why scientists are motivated to learn more about dry lightning events. Dmitri Kalashnikov is one of those scientists. He is currently conducting research using lightning and precipitation data at the University of Washington.