Thundercloud pre-stroke electrostatic modeling

The electric field in a short gap for a known volume charge distribution is initially investigated, enabling the limits of application and the accuracy of an approximate version of a rigorous field formulation to be examined. The approximation substantially consists in neglecting possible charge density gradients in the volume occupied by the charge distribution and only considering the charge density at the bounding surface. This simplified approach leads to a three-level set of charged circular discs for calculating analytically the electric field beneath an upright-cylindrical configuration of a thundercloud cell. A selected set of results offers convincing arguments to support such a pre-stroke model, especially for applications to thundercloud physics and lightning protection, as an alternative to early point-source dipolar arrangements.