On the night of 8/24/11, a leading-line/trailing stratiform mesoscale convective system developed and moved over Toronto, Canada.  The heart of the trailing stratiform region passed directly over the 553 m tall CN Tower and the people of Toronto were treated to an incredible light show as the tower unleashed at least 34 upward flashes over the span of an hour.  Wilke and Elizabeth See-Tho graciously provided me some video of the event and my analysis suggests that all of the upward flashes were triggered by preceding flash activity (lightning-triggered lightning) similar to what I observe in Rapid City, South Dakota.  For each case there was clearly in-cloud flash activity that preceded the upward leader initiation.  In addition, recoil leaders were visible in a large majority of the upward leaders suggesting they were positive polarity.

Below is a composite image where I stacked selected images from the See-Tho’s video.  As you can see, the CN Tower was literally ablaze with lightning leaders over the span of the storm.

Below is the edited video provided by the See-Tho’s.  This version plays in real time showing all 34 upward flashes and one spider lightning flash.

Below is the the same video sped up.

Below is video of each flash played at normal speed and in slow motion (total runtime 34 min).

Although I have not obtained nor analyzed lightning data for this storm, I suspect that a majority of the upward flashes were triggered by a preceding +CG flash within 50 km of the tower.  Horizontally extensive positive charge regions that form in the trailing stratiform regions of MCSs serve as potential wells for negative leaders that can travel upwards of 100 km.  This horizontally extensive negative leader development can take place during an intracloud flash and/or following a +CG return stroke.  The negative field change (atmospheric electricity sign convention) experienced at a tall tower by the approach of negative leaders or nearby +CG return stroke can initiate upward propagating positive leaders.  The conditions apparently were ideal for this triggering process and weather radar shows this was likely the case.

Below is a radar loop (base reflectivity, 0.5 degree tilt) of the storm development and passage over the CN Tower spanning from 00:02 – 03:41 UT, 8/25/11.  The See-Tho’s stated that the first upward flash was shortly after 02:00 UT.  This places the leading line convective region just east of the CN Tower with the tower in an area of decrease reflectivity between 30-40 dBz.  The tower would stay under this level of reflectivity (i.e., the trailing stratiform precipitation area) until 03:41 UT.  The last upward flash the See-Tho’s recorded was at approximately 03:06, but they thought there were a few more upward flashes that followed after they stopped filming.

This truly was a perfect storm to produce upward lightning flashes.  I suspect that many transient luminous events (TLEs) in the form of halos and/or sprites may have also been produced by the very same triggering flashes responsible for initiating the upward leaders.  The CN Tower is instrumented to measure current through the tower and there is an array of optical sensors including a high-speed camera within 3 km of the tower.  Hopefully, all the instrumentation was operational and an outstanding data set was captured.