News | June 22, 2000

LightningStorm.com Verifies the When, Where, and How Much of Lightning

For people involved in maintaining the power, a new service is available to help detect the effects of lightning.

LightningStorm.com (Tucson, AZ) — the online source for the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) data — introduces StrikeNet. This feature allows users to verify lightning events for a fee. The site is available for running reports on a 7x24 time-frame.

Use StrikeNet to:

  • Verify if lightning was or was not present at a location on a specific date.
  • Search up to 14 consecutive days for lightning activity since January 1, 1998.
  • Find out how many strikes occurred in a selected 5- to 15-mile search radius.
  • Find out how powerful the strikes were that occurred in a search radius.
The basic StrikeNet report includes a summary of the number of lightning strikes detected in a search area, radius, and time period. The report also incorporates actual cloud-to-ground lightning strike data — detected by the NLDN for the date and location of an individual's interest. Optional features include:
  • Optional Map plotting lightning activity within a search region.
  • Optional Confidence Ellipses indicating a 99% certainty that the recorded lightning event contacted the ground within the bounds of the ellipse.
  • Optional Lightning Data Printout including the dates, time to the nearest second, latitude, longitude, peak current, and range from the center of the search area.
Industries most interested in the report data are:
  • Insurance – provides an objective means of verifying lightning damage claims
  • Electric utilities – helps determine outages causes
  • Forestry – helps focus fire management activities in affected areas
  • Telecommunications – assists in power reliability and network performance evaluations
  • Commercial/Industrial – helps any business with power management concerns identify costly outages
Some of the companies most interested in lightning data includes the National Weather Service; The Weather Channel; Federal Aviation Administration; NASA; MCI WorldCom; The PGA Tour; most major airlines; and hundreds of golf courses, swimming pools, parks, and schools.

Edited by: Jerry R. Borland, P.E.