I know the author, this came out of some interesting academic work he did.
Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
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Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
#12I've been using this for years. It's very useful in the summer season for hiking. There's an Android app that lets you configure alert if there's a lightning strike nearby. IIRC you could also buy their detector hardware and join the network to help improve accuracy.
> There's an Android app that lets you configure alert if there's a lightning strike nearby.
Does it play a thunder sound? ;)
Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
#13I 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.
"Since the attenuation of VLF waves is smaller for west to east propagation and during the night, thunderstorm activity up to distances of about 10,000 km can be observed for signals arriving from the west during night time conditions. Otherwise, the transmission range is of the order of 5,000 km."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_atmospheric_signal ("sferic")
Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
#14I'm impressed with the range of some detectors. Some lightnings in Japan are being picked up by detectors in the US' east coast, or detector in New Zealand picking up a lighting in North Africa.
You can read more about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41372225 (I just happened to have replied there first)
Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
#15Fun 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.
Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
#16I 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.
Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
#17I 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
Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
#18I've been using this for years. It's very useful in the summer season for hiking. There's an Android app that lets you configure alert if there's a lightning strike nearby. IIRC you could also buy their detector hardware and join the network to help improve accuracy.
> There's an Android app that lets you configure alert if there's a lightning strike nearby. Does it play a thunder sound? ;)
Or play Thunder Struck by AC/DC! :-)
Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
#19I 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.
You might like this too... :-)
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/soundscape-listening-...
Re: Blitzortung – real time lightning strikes around the world
#20Wow, you could build a really cool 3D visualizer with this data.