We know from observation and analysis of horizontally extensive lightning flashes that often negative leaders travel horizontally through a layered positive charge region that spans large areas. We frequently observe that positive cloud-to-ground return strokes occur along the path the negative leaders travel but in trail of the negative leader tips. Current thinking is that the negative leaders become cutoff from their original positive ends and then develop new positive leader ends that propagate downward to the ground and cause a +CG return stroke that then further extend the negative leaders. Although we have frequently documented the positive leaders growing toward ground after negative leaders propagate in cloud, due to the clouds, we rarely are able to see the positive leader development initially take place from the previously formed negative leader channel. This video contains three cases where we see the negative leader channel from which a new positive leader develops, propagates to ground and causes a +CG return stroke that travels toward the end of the negative leaders, thus furthering their propagation. What is interesting and has yet to be understood is how the positive leader seems to develop from a still luminous negative leader channel segment. The luminosity in the negative leader channel suggests it is still actively carrying current and not completely cutoff. Therefore, we need to determine through further research the mechanism by which a positive leader is able to form and develop from this luminous channel. This behavior was first documented and described in a paper by Saba et al., 2009 using high-speed camera imagery.
Saba, M. M. F., L. Z. S. Campos, E. P. Krider, and O. Pinto Jr. (2009), High-speed video observations of positive ground flashes produced by intracloud lightning, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L12811, doi:10.1029/2009GL038791.