Flashes of Brilliance: The Science and Wonder of Arizona Lightning

Ronald L. Holle is a meteorological consultant in Oro Valley, Arizona. He has worked extensively in meteorological education issues, particularly lightning safety and the demographics of lightning victims. He has authored or co-authored 80 formally reviewed journal papers, 19 books and book chapters, and 344 informal papers. He worked for NOAA research laboratories in Norman, Oklahoma; Boulder, Colorado; Coral Gables, Florida; and Silver Spring, Maryland, and is currently a consultant to Vaisala in Tucson. He has analyzed cloud-to-ground and in-cloud lightning data from ground-based detection networks as they relate to radar echoes, rainfall, flash floods, and winter weather, as well as compiling lightning climatologies. He participated in meteorological field programs in the USA, Caribbean, and West Africa. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in meteorology from Florida State University and took additional coursework at the University of Miami. Since 2002, Mr. Holle has been on scientific organizing committees for the International Lightning Detection Conferences and International Lightning Meteorology Conferences in Tucson, Helsinki, Orlando, Broomfield, San Diego, and Fort Lauderdale. He is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the African Centres for Lightning & Electromagnetics Network. He was awarded the STAC Outstanding Service Award of the American Meteorological Society in 2019, elected a fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2009, and received the Dr. T. Theodore Fujita Research Achievement Award from the National Weather Association in 2008.

Daile Zhang is a postdoctoral associate at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC)/ Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies (CISESS), University of Maryland. Daile received her PhD degree in Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona. In the summer of 2015, she worked as a Giant Leap intern at Vaisala Inc. in Colorado. Her current research focuses on evaluating and assessing lightning data from different lightning locating systems, including ground-based and satellite-based networks. She has been awarded several NOAA grants as the Principal Investigator including the 2020 ROSES call. Daile has taught and given guest lectures for more than 600 undergraduate and 30 graduate students for five different levels of courses. She constructed the online modules for a summer undergraduate course – Weather, Climate and Society at the University of Arizona. In addition, she has advised several undergraduate and high school students for their graduation and semester research projects. Daile serves on the Board of Directors of the African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network (ACLENet) and is a member of the U.S. National Lightning Safety Council. She also serves on the World Meteorological Organization’s Committee on Weather and Climate Extremes and helped certify two new megaflash lightning records in 2022.