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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

#61

Post by lxgr »

spdustin wrote: post #43
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.

Yes, especially in older homes or homes with poor grounding. Lightning can discharge through water supply lines[0]. There are even cases of toilets exploding due to lightning strikes[1]. (Google for more) Sure, it's exceedingly rare. But it's also exceedingly easy to avoid. I've taught my kids that some decisions are easier when defined as binary rules; judgment calls in cases like this just don't offer any tangible…

On the other hand, I wonder if you might be teaching a bad lesson about neglect of probability [1] here. The shower itself is probably orders of magnitude more dangerous by itself.

I'm wondering because I am also unsure myself if I should be concerned about lightning when showering, or whether it's statistically speaking an absolute waste of time :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglect_of_probability

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#62

Post by lxgr »

spdustin wrote: post #42
refibrillator wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice, what are the odds though? I searched around but couldn’t find any hard stats. Is this like nuclear bunker in my basement type of precaution?

Yes, it's exceedingly rare. But it's one of those "avoiding this activity for an hour could prevent you from dying painfully" things, so we don't shower/bathe/wash dishes when there's lightning.

> it's one of those "avoiding this activity for an hour could prevent you from dying painfully" things

If you do this often enough, for extremely unlikely scenarios that don't sum up to a meaningful aggregate risk of dying, you might very well have a negative return on investment though. (Time spent worrying about an unlikely sudden death is time you don't spend enjoying life, or at least avoiding a slightly earlier but much more likely death.)

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#63

Post by eth0up »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #53

Which ones have current flowing up from the ground versus down from the sky?

I'm not soiling myself with youtube searches atm, but Pecos Hank has a fabulous channel and video on the subject of lightning types. Here's a link to a brief description on his site:

https://pecoshank.com/anvil-crawler-lightning-video-and-fact...

The guy is an artist and a scholar. Highly recommended.

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#64

Post by darnthenuggets »

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...

GOES is not quite as spatially accurate as surface mounted detectors and IIRC fails to recognize certain types of flashes that are of interest to humans. It’s more of a general intensity meter than anything like a warning system.

Their technical documentation is extremely well written. They discuss most of their limitations in there (and you can get a SQS feed of it to poke around yourself)

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#65

Post by octopoc »

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…

For bonus points if the shower becomes unsafe while in use, you can optimize the shower by turning off hot water using this gadget: https://faucetlist.com/collections/thermostatic-shower-fauce...

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#66

Post by telgareith »

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.

Lightning has reached down from 10,000ft to strike the ground, do not make the mistake that it cares about anything humanity has built. Even with a lightning rod/abatement system, its probabilities and 'preferred paths.'

Plus, we really don't know all that much about lightning. Things like "ball lightning" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning) seem insane/impossible, but theres too many reports from everywhere on earth that go back hundreds of years- enough of them from reliable sources that its just "unexplained."

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#67

Post by purplerabbit »

iamthejuan wrote: post #58
Dibby053 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to frighten your family more, but shower NEVER is safe. Unlike lightning, slips and falls in the bathroom are quite common and sometimes result in death or lifelong injury.

Smaller bathroom will resolve this to avoid total fall to the ground.

Sponge bath lying down in insulated closet is safest option

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#68

Post by lxgr »

itishappy wrote: post #16
IAmGraydon wrote: post #5

I don't have much to add except to say that this is really amazing. I had no idea we had so many interlinked lightning strike detectors across the world. What's really interesting is from time to time, the detectors in Europe seem to be detecting lightning in the US.

Interesting to note that "electricity arcing through air" is pretty much exactly how our first radio transmitters worked, including the device used to send the first transatlantic signal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter

That’s also why the German word for radio translates to “spark” :)

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#69

Post by lxgr »

shagie wrote: post #54
Havoc wrote: post #32

I wonder if anyone is using this as a source of entropy

It's likely relatively poor entropy. https://www.science.org/content/article/lightning-has-long-d... > SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA--The jury may still be out on whether lightning can strike the same place twice, but a new study gives the public another riddle to ponder: Can distant lightning bolts talk to each other? Evidence gathered from space shuttle recordings indicates that, rather than being randomly distributed,…

The individual strikes are probably not influencing each other, but are rather caused by a common trigger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_runaway_electron_...

Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world

#70

Post by jcims »

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

If you're into distributed citizen science you might like rasbpherryshake

https://stationview.raspberryshake.org/

I haven't pulled the trigger yet but keep coming back and thinking about it.

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