Localized Hourly Lightning Climatology Heatmaps: A Visual Tool for Evaluating Lightning Risk

Lightning and thunderstorms significantly impact a broad part of society. On average, 27 people are killed and nearly 250 people are injured annually from cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning flashes across the United States. Each year, CG lightning also initiates wildfires that account for around 3.8 million acres of land burned, around 35 percent more acres burned than human-caused wildfires. Additionally, thunderstorms can contribute to substantial delays for commercial flights across the U.S. National Airspace System. Lightning can also threaten people attending outdoor events and other recreational activities.

Location-based lightning climatology imagery can tell a detailed story of a geographic area’s thunderstorm tendencies and may be beneficial to those impacted by thunderstorms. Heatmap matrix-style displays were chosen to depict lightning data because of their unique ability to visualize large amounts of data while maintaining high temporal resolution. These heatmaps are derived from 30 years of archived Vaisala NLDN® CG flash data and are intended to inform interested users on their temporal lightning climatology risk. Users can choose to view a heatmap of CG flash frequency per hour and week of the year or total number of CG flashes for each hour per week of the year.

An interactive map with CONUS counties, National Weather Service Fire Weather Zones, and 10SM range rings around airports provides access to lightning climatology for each of these geographic areas. The primary goal for this imagery is to better enable weather-related decisions and reduce risk for interests that are impacted by thunderstorms.

The interactive map for lightning heatmaps may be accessed at: https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=1f94af1948914f4a8c4600cb427f2982&mobileBreakPoint=250