the range on those detectors is amazing.
Real-time lightning map, worldwide
11–20 of 67 posts
Re: Real-time lightning map, worldwide
#12This is so cool!!
Re: Real-time lightning map, worldwide
#13Maybe it's the sounds generated by the app, but I like to think that my furious clicking causes some of the lightning bolts.
Re: Real-time lightning map, worldwide
#14What do the lines mean?
Re: Real-time lightning map, worldwide
#15What do the lines mean?
They show the detectors that picked up the strikes. I don't know if a single detector can determine distance, or if the strike location is triangulated using angles from multiple detectors.
[edit] Oh, the detectors are quite simple. They use GPS for position and time and report time-of-arrival of the elctromagnetic pulses. The server then uses that information to figure out where the strikes occurred.
http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/index.php?lang=en&page=3
Re: Real-time lightning map, worldwide
#16cool, I'm looking forward for this evening's thunderstorm to confirm if it's actually/acurately working :) Average delay appears to be between 3s and 10s here in Europe, but closer to 3s.
Re: Real-time lightning map, worldwide
#17I see they have engineered their own detectors [1], but could cellphones be used as EMP detectors? They have GPS and antennas after all.
[1] http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/index.php?lang=en&page=3
Re: Real-time lightning map, worldwide
#18Worldwide, if you don't count Africa...
Re: Real-time lightning map, worldwide
#19Worldwide, if you don't count Africa...
They only have so many volunteers, to be fair.
Re: Real-time lightning map, worldwide
#20How are they getting the data?
(This is getting a bit pedantic but this is HN so we like to be accurate. And I learned the word on HN so might as well pass it on.)
Several of the other answers have mentioned "triangulation" but that's not quite right--that would imply that each listening station measures an angle towards the lightning source. But they don't--instead, they collect non-directional data consisting of arrival time stamps.
I believe the word for what they're doing is "trilateration".
Edit: I originally said "multilateration" but it turns out that's not quite right, either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration
The More You Know.