Science! By Ryan Whitwam Jun. 23, 2014 3:00 pm
A new project from a group at Blitzortung.org seeks to map all the lightning strikes in the world in real time, and you can help. The detection network relies on regular people who are keen to buy and deploy radio frequency antennas to track electromagnetic discharges in the atmosphere. The data is piped into the Blitzortung (German for “lightning locating,” by the way) servers, and anyone can see the fascinating live output in their web browser. There’s even a bug-zapper sound for each strike.
The kits cost about €200 ($275) and can be purchased from Blitzortung fully assembled (for most countries). Each station tracks the radio signals produced by lightning strikes and notes the exact time it was detected. This data, along with the receiver’s precise geographic location, is sent to the Blitzortung server where it is combined with data from all the other stations. The location of lightning strikes can be determined by using the time difference and location each one was recorded, like triangulating a phone’s location using cell towers.
Live maps are currently available in Europe, North America, Asia, South America, and the Oceania region. The color of the dots on the map indicate how old the strike is — white means less than 20 minutes, and at the other end, red is as much as 120 minutes old. The lines flashing on the map tell you which detectors were used to locate a particular strike. As you can see, they’ve got good range.
The detectors are very sensitive to the specific low-frequency radio*fingerprint of lightning strikes, so they work from thousands of miles away. Although, closer stations are needed to pin down the best location. There appear to be just a few dozen stations in the US right now. Looking at the US map, it seems to match up well with live weather radar for areas of severe weather, though. If you want to help map lightning, the Blitzortung.org team can be contacted via the form under “Cover your area” on their website.
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The kits cost about €200 ($275) and can be purchased from Blitzortung fully assembled (for most countries). Each station tracks the radio signals produced by lightning strikes and notes the exact time it was detected. This data, along with the receiver’s precise geographic location, is sent to the Blitzortung server where it is combined with data from all the other stations. The location of lightning strikes can be determined by using the time difference and location each one was recorded, like triangulating a phone’s location using cell towers.
Live maps are currently available in Europe, North America, Asia, South America, and the Oceania region. The color of the dots on the map indicate how old the strike is — white means less than 20 minutes, and at the other end, red is as much as 120 minutes old. The lines flashing on the map tell you which detectors were used to locate a particular strike. As you can see, they’ve got good range.
The detectors are very sensitive to the specific low-frequency radio*fingerprint of lightning strikes, so they work from thousands of miles away. Although, closer stations are needed to pin down the best location. There appear to be just a few dozen stations in the US right now. Looking at the US map, it seems to match up well with live weather radar for areas of severe weather, though. If you want to help map lightning, the Blitzortung.org team can be contacted via the form under “Cover your area” on their website.
More...
