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Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

blitzortung.org

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Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#31

Post by aftbit »

jeffbee wrote: post #27
yreg wrote: post #17

I use their service ( https://www.lightningmaps.org/ ) often, it is perfect for getting an impression about the scale and distance of an incoming storm. It's a bit of a shame, that their detector system project seems to be frozen/dead. Last version (2014, unavailable for orders): https://www.blitzortung.org/en/cover_your_area.php Forum thread (last post 2019): https://www.blitzortung.org/en/forum.php?tid=1656

Are such instruments of ongoing interest now that we have orbiting lightning mappers? https://www.goes-r.gov/products/baseline-lightning-detection...

I'm personally interested in them but I'm not sure there's a good technical reason. I just think offline local sensing is cool.

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#33

Post by sva_ »

lightningshz wrote: post #29
Handyman10 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a little teeny tiny bit of morbid curiosity, Blitzortung can also serve as a civilian early detection system for nuclear detonations in the rare, unusual, pesky occurrences of nuclear armageddons ;), a nuclear bomb detonation would show up in the signal with a much higher magnitude than a lightning strike and therefore could be easily detected as well, right? If so, then it would be useful if Blitzortung could c…

"Nuclear detonations are generally realized to be strong sources of coherent electromagnetic radiation (the elec- tromagnetic pulse) within the very low and low-frequency (VLF and LF) radio bands (3-300 kHz) [US. Department of Defense. 1962. pp. 502-506)." ... " The network consists of more than 500 lightning receivers and some central processing servers. The sources of the signals we locate are in general lightning…

Perhaps we could write some unit tests that detonate a few nukes to make sure it works

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#34

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

yreg wrote: post #17

I use their service ( https://www.lightningmaps.org/ ) often, it is perfect for getting an impression about the scale and distance of an incoming storm. It's a bit of a shame, that their detector system project seems to be frozen/dead. Last version (2014, unavailable for orders): https://www.blitzortung.org/en/cover_your_area.php Forum thread (last post 2019): https://www.blitzortung.org/en/forum.php?tid=1656

They just released a new detector so I don't think it is necessarily true that the detector system project is dead. I'm not sure how you get one of those boxes though: https://www.blitzortung.org/en/whats_new.php

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#35

Post by phoronixrly »

jeffbee wrote: post #27
yreg wrote: post #17

I use their service ( https://www.lightningmaps.org/ ) often, it is perfect for getting an impression about the scale and distance of an incoming storm. It's a bit of a shame, that their detector system project seems to be frozen/dead. Last version (2014, unavailable for orders): https://www.blitzortung.org/en/cover_your_area.php Forum thread (last post 2019): https://www.blitzortung.org/en/forum.php?tid=1656

Are such instruments of ongoing interest now that we have orbiting lightning mappers? https://www.goes-r.gov/products/baseline-lightning-detection...

It's a bit deeper than this...

First of all, Blitzortung is as far as I can tell independent, volunteer-based and thus open for everyone to use, support and feed with data. It is also real-time (or at least max 10-15 seconds of latency).

There are however drawbacks:

- The hardware is relatively expensive (relatively because when you compare it to ham or professional RF tech, it is in fact dirt cheap :(), so there's a barrier for entry into the network if you would like to cover your area. Add to that having an appropriate place for the antennas.

- There seem to be issues that make the default visualisation of lightning strikes as points on the map dubiously accurate. The example I notice most often is that whenever a lightning discharges in a cloud as opposed to the ground, it often gets detected as several lightning strikes. This may be as simple as adding the equivalent of error bars to each detection, but I am not any kind of authority on the matter.

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#36

Post by spdustin »

For my kids, I have a virtual light switch in HomeKit called "Shower Is Safe". It's pinned to the top of the Home app.

I use the Home Assistant integration to fetch this data and run some calculations on the past few minutes of lightning activity. Since the API returns lightning strike time and bearing from a given location, I can (in combination with wind direction) determine if the lightning is approaching or receding.

If it's approaching and less than 30 minutes away (or if any strike is within 20 miles in any direction), it turns off the light switch. It then waits until it's been receding for at least 15 minutes (and with no more detections within 20 miles) before switching "Shower is Safe" back on.

I can (and do) override it if I notice it's potentially hazardous to shower.

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#37

Post by spdustin »

SSchick wrote: post #23
DubMFG wrote: post #15

Fun fact: you can integrate Blitzortung lightning strikes into Home Assistant with this HACS repo: https://github.com/mrk-its/homeassistant-blitzortung It will add each strike as a device temporarily on your devices map.

I'd be careful about this, they explicitly do not want you to use their websocket as a public api (hence the obfuscation in their protocol), I wrote a JS library and opted not to play cat and mouse with them.

From the repo:

    Data is served through a public MQTT server (dedicated to serve requests for this component) - thanks to geohash-based topics and some other optimizations it greatly reduces amount of data sent to clients comparing to direct websocket connection to Blitzortung servers (it is also required by Blitzortung data usage policy - third party apps must use their own servers to server data for their own clients).

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#38

Post by phoronixrly »

spdustin wrote: post #36

For my kids, I have a virtual light switch in HomeKit called "Shower Is Safe". It's pinned to the top of the Home app. I use the Home Assistant integration to fetch this data and run some calculations on the past few minutes of lightning activity. Since the API returns lightning strike time and bearing from a given location, I can (in combination with wind direction) determine if the lightning is approaching or reced…

Wait, why would showering in a lightning storm not be safe? Do you expect the lightning to discharge in the pipes of your house? How?

Or is it that your children would be scared if the power goes out when they're showering? That I understand.

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#39

Post by AhriSafari »

phoronixrly wrote: post #38
spdustin wrote: post #36

For my kids, I have a virtual light switch in HomeKit called "Shower Is Safe". It's pinned to the top of the Home app. I use the Home Assistant integration to fetch this data and run some calculations on the past few minutes of lightning activity. Since the API returns lightning strike time and bearing from a given location, I can (in combination with wind direction) determine if the lightning is approaching or reced…

Wait, why would showering in a lightning storm not be safe? Do you expect the lightning to discharge in the pipes of your house? How? Or is it that your children would be scared if the power goes out when they're showering? That I understand.

I learned a few months ago showering in lightning is dangerous.

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#40

Post by phoronixrly »

AhriSafari wrote: post #39
phoronixrly wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why would showering in a lightning storm not be safe? Do you expect the lightning to discharge in the pipes of your house? How? Or is it that your children would be scared if the power goes out when they're showering? That I understand.

I learned a few months ago showering in lightning is dangerous.

You can't just say that without explaining why.

I live on the 8/10 floor of a building that gets yearly lightning rod inspections. All piping has been replaced with polypropylene (clean water) or PVC (dirty) and even when it was metal, the electrical and water systems were far apart from one another. Even if they were not far apart, all wiring is underground. The transformer is inside a nearby building and also has lightning rods/wires and all wiring to and from it is underground. There is literally no scenario apart from ball lightning coming through my bathroom window while I shower that I can think of

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