20030708: Lightning and explosive

>From: "Wall, Marion" <address@hidden>
>Organization: Navy?
>Keywords: 200307081030.h68ATvLd003403

Marion,

>I am a member of a search and rescue team. Over the 4th we had the duty to
>assist pyrotechnics on a barge for the fireworks presentation. Later it
>started to storm and at times we left the area. I am looking of an accurate
>and realtime source for lightning activity in a selected area. Of course we
>want it free. With that said, can you point me in the proper direction.

The NOAAPORT broadcast of realtime meteorological data does contain
lightning data, but it is encrypted to limit its distribution (the NLDN
lightning data is very expensive to purchase).

Is your search and rescue team activity associated with the US Navy?
If yes, then I will send along an email to a NASA contact of mine to
see if he can provide details on how he is getting and decrypting the
lightning data.  Since your email address is from the .navy.mil domain,
it would seem to me that you should be able to get a decryption key to
decode and use the data.  Exactly how you would go about doing this, I
don't know, but I could probably find a contact in NASA that could
point the way.

If your search and rescue activities are not associated with the US
government in some sort of tangible way, I am afraid that the only way
you will be able to get access to real time lightning data is by
purchasing it.

The company that collects and sells lightning data is Vaisala Inc.
The URL for their web page is:

http://www.lightningstorm.com

They do provide an online display of lightning data at:

http://www.lightningstorm.com/ls2/gpg/lex1/mapdisplay_free.jsp

and this may be sufficient for your purposes, and it is free.

Best of luck in your endeavors!

Tom Yoksas