Tornadoes, thunder, and underwater sound from lightning

Outdoor sound propagation was a cornerstone of Bass’ research throughout much of his career. During the late 1970s, propagation of sound from natural sources became of particular interest. This talk focuses on three aspects of this phase of Bass’ research: (1) efforts to localize lightning from an analysis of recordings made with a distributed ground microphone array, (2) recording the underwater sound produced by lightning striking the surface of the ocean, and (3) development of a tornado alert detector based on the acoustic signature of tornadoes.