Overview of capabilities and performance of the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network

This paper gives a brief overview of the current capability of the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN), as well as performance assessment. In particular, we mention some recent measurement campaigns validating the performance of the NLDN. The existing NLDN also has a long-range capability that is currently used operationally by the Aviation Weather Center. We give a brief synopsis of this capability and some preliminary assessment of its performance. We also discuss a relatively recent enhancement to our long-range lightning capability over the northern Pacific Ocean. Finally, in late 2005, the NLDN will begin delivering limited cloud lightning information. We discuss the estimated performance of the network for cloud lightning detection and an analysis of cloud lightning detection by an experimental low-frequency network in the Dallas-Ft Worth region.