[1] High-speed video camera records, with a temporal resolution of 20 μs and a spatial resolution of 2.4 m per pixel, of a downward negative lightning flash that terminated on a 440 m high building are examined. The attachment process in this flash exhibited an unexpected behavior in that the downward leader tip connected to the lateral surface of the~400 m upward connecting leader (UCL) below its tip. It appears that the effect of the downward leader on the UCL is significant, while the effect of the UCL on the downward leader is negligible, except for the final 80 μs preceding the beginning of the first return stroke. The ratio of speeds of the downward leader and the UCL tends to decrease with time, ranging from 1.8 to 0.12, although the lower 80-100 m or so of the UCL were too faint to allow speed measurements.

[1] Forty-five unconnected upward leaders (UULs) occurred in 19 downward negative flashes are analyzed. Each observed UUL is initiated by a downward stepped leader before a new strike point is struck. For each UUL, several parameters are determined when possible mainly by using high-speed images: inception height, inception time prior to return stroke (RS), horizontal distance from the flash's strike point, two-dimensional (2D) distance between the nearest downward leader branch tip and the UUL's inception point at its inception time, 2D length, and 2D average propagation velocity.

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