Analysis of Lightning Characteristics in a Thunderstorm with Gust

One severe thunderstorm with damaging straight-line wind occurred on 21 June 2005 in north Shandong Province. Based on the analysis of lightning activities, radar echo and cloud image, it was found that the cloud-to-ground (CG) flash rates increased rapidly at the initial stage, and kept in a high level (about above 20 fl/5 min) during the whole mature stage. At the dissipating stage, positive CG flashes gradually became dominant. For the advent of the peak value, the hourly flash rate lagged behind the minimum brightness temperature, and the area of cold cloud shield with temperature <−50 °C lagged behind the hourly flash rate. The pulse of CG flash rate was slightly ahead of the occurrence of severe surface wind. Downburst caused the damaging wind with the maximum measured value of wind speed approximately the same to the maximum potential speed calculated by WINDEX.