LIDIA (Lightning Detection and Information Analysis)

Last Updated - January 9, 2003

What is LIDIA?

LIDIA is a lightning research project that will primarily look for lightning signatures that can be utilized in lightning algorithms for nowcasting storm behavior and the onset of severe weather such as hail, microbursts, flash floods and Tornadoes. There is on-going research in this area by the National Weather Service and National Severe Storms Lab and others. Including the SPORT Group at the NSSTC in Huntsville, AL. at http://weather.msfc.nasa.gov/sport/lma . Our intent is to build on this research and other research to look at the localized affects of signatures and algorithms for the detection of severe weather and its effectiveness in the operational arena. Our primary goal is to develop SCIT's or Storm Cell Identification
Tables with a software environment to be used with real time lightning data.

Like STEPS2000, we too will try to "address USWRP's goal to improve the specificity, accuracy, and reliability of weather forecasts for disruptive, high impact weather, particularly for heavy precipitation, hail, and tornadoes" - (STEPS2000). Our approach will entail the use of pre-existing algorithms and building ones where there are not any in use today, or to refine data in a format that can one day possibly be used to produce algorithms with further research on that specific topic area.

Why Now?

Currently a number of research projects are either on-going around the world, or are being planned, LIDIA will be one of these projects.

This is a good time to collect data and have it available to compare to data collected from other studies and to do so while the focus is on the topic of atmospheric electrical processes. The synergism internally with in our working group and the synergism externally will only complement the work in progress. The collaboration and sharing of data and some resources is also a tremendous asset at this time. The internet in part and the advances in telecommunication makes this a prime opportunity for such a project to take place, with minimal effort in establishing overall communications infrastructure. It is also important to note the advances in computers, hardware, and software that are much more affordable and re-usable for other tasks following their respective use with in the confines of a given project. There is also a renewed interest in the area of lightning data and its uses in the operational arena beyond the basic current uses of such data (i.e. - mapping lightning, and in some cases its polarity).

Who Will be involved?

A list of participants is listed in the table below and will be updated over the course of the study.

When will this take place?

This project will be on-going for the foreseeable future, During the Fall of 2002 and winter 2003, logistics, materials, and equipment will be procured and placed in service. During the winter of 2003 - there will be work performed to prepare for the start up of data collection. In the Spring and Summer, we will focus on data collection and observe data as it is ingested and utilizing NEXRAD Radar, GOES Satellite images, and other meteorological data to watch to for correlation's between lightning activity and the actual behavior of cells and their initiation, maturity and dissipation. Some other goals are to work on Lightning Prediction/Potential, Lead time to On-set, Real-time Detection, Surveillance and Data Collection, Termination of activity and collection of relevant data per post event. This will be followed by post analysis and on-going research. Hail detection using lightning sensors and the role of Compact Intracloud discharges (CID's) and their possible association with hail production will be of interest too. We will monitor the electrical processes that accompany these storm systems with a focus quasi-stationary isolated cells that are out ahead of a line or in their own environment (i.e. - not competing for fuel). During the Summer of 2003, there will be a focal point for wet microbursts and straight line winds that evolve from summertime air mass thunderstorms. Early detection of thunderstorms and lead time nowcasting techniques will be another area of interest that might be applicable to auto-nowcasting which could assist in the future with storm initiation information. The impact would be faster and more accurate information for outdoor activities and power sensitive interests like computer facilities, power distribution and many other lightning sensitive entities.

It is interesting to note that three wet microbursts in the month of August 1999, in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Harvest area of Alabama and Huntsville, Alabama, each created damage that was similar to damage one would see with a F0 - F1 Tornado, all three came with little or no warning, and only one case was known to have been observed by our lightning detection equipment that has been put in service to date. In atleast one of the cases families were displaced from their homes that were destroyed in the microburst. Despite the fact that one or two of these were caught live on Tower Cams, and the fact that over 18 weather capable radars were in the vicinity and a vast amount of other meteorological resources found below there was not a timely and accurate technique in place to provide a lead time warning to the affected area. It is equally important to note that Dr. Kevin Knupp of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center (GHCC) in Huntsville and others, have worked with the Birmingham Weather Forecast Office (BMX WFO) on this very subject matter for several years now. In fact the BMX WFO has held several professional development seminars on mircobursts too - yet they still remain elusive as ever. It may be possible that cell based lightning data combined with other data such as radar, and rapid scan satellite data, LIS data from Geostationary satellites will lend a better understanding and more timely warning of microbursts and many other meteorological phenomenon.

Lightning activity increases and decreases can be to some degree directly correlated with updrafts and downdrafts, in some cases sudden lightning falls or drop off in activity occur tens of minutes prior to the onset of a microburst at the surface - however much more research needs to be done to find this correlation and to reduce the overall false alarm rates that such a technique would entail and the use of radar and lightning detection systems side by side in real time detection and warning will be of great interest not just to the area of microbursts.

Where will this study take place

A fifty mile perimeter has been established due to the fact that beyond this distance we can not detect reliably the +CG, -CG, -IC, +IC, CID's (Compact Intracloud Discharges), and
other related data, further anything beyond this area is out of range for the most part with regards to the GWX (Columbus MS NEXRAD) Radar, and also sensing equipment in NE MS. such as PW Water via GPS, and Wind Profiler. We do hope to use any data that the GHCC Lightning group develops or collects during this time period. The MM5 Model will likely be utilized as required during our study, this model for the area of concern below is run from the NSSTC\GHCC in Huntsville, AL.

The focal region for this study is North Alabama, Southern Tennessee, and Eastern Mississippi, in the counties of Lauderdale, Colbert, Franklin, Lawrence, Marion in Alabama. Alcorn, Prentiss, Itawamba, Tishomingo in Mississippi. Hardin, Wayne, Lawrence Counties in Tennessee. This will cover out to about 50 nm on each radial from the main communications center. The sensing equipment and computer infrastructure will be located in the Barton, Alabama area. There may be other platforms added at other locations between now and Spring 2003 for use in this study. Meteorological Data will be collected from radars, ASOS, Rain Gauge Networks, and other sources that exist in the geographical area of the study. Research Equipment unique to this study is listed in the table below.

Some Useful Links:

LIDIA Climatology
Forecast Applications Using Lightning Data: Nowcasting! (A work in progress)
Power Point Presentation (This was presented at the 2nd Annual Severe Storms Symposium at MSU (Jan 2003)

Research Equipment / Platforms

NOTICE: All Instruments used in this project must have the ability to archive data to a PC hard drive for review by project participants and external parties that wish to do case studies of their own on given "interesting events".

Instrument	Company	Mission	Data Output	Archive Capability
LSU 2002(30)® with Version 7 Software	McCallie Mfg.	High Speed Sensor/ Counter to Count Lightning Strokes within range of the sensor and run the Lightning and Severe Storm Detection System Algorithm ® (LSSDSA)	Total Lightning and LSSDSA Output and Event Stroke Graph	IBM PC Files, Daily File
LSU 2002(30)® with Version 7 Software	McCallie Mfg.	High Speed Sensor/ Counter: To Count Lightning Strokes within range of the sensor and run the Spectrum Analzyer	Total Lightning and Storm Spectrum data..	IBM PC Files, Daily File
Boltek Stormtracker with DOS Software	Boltek Corporation	To Map Lightning within 300 nautical miles on a Base Map and to Count the total lightning and Close Strokes respectively.	Total Lightning, Map Plot of Strike Locations and Cell Clusters	IBM PC Files, Daily File
Boltek Stormtracker with Windows Software	Boltek Corporation	To Map Lightning within 300 nautical miles on a Base Map and to Count the total lightning and Close Strokes respectively	Total Lightning, Map Plot of Strike Locations and Cell Clusters	IBM PC Files, Daily File
Boltek Stormtracker with Lightning/2000 Software™ V3	Aninoquisi Software Design	To Collect Lightning Data and Plot Storm or Cell Location with an elongated Octant and monitor Realtime Nowcasting Data on lightning activity. To monitor total lightning graph and cell based lightning attributes and utilize a wide range of alarms that will aid in maintaining attention to interesting cells and their evolution and eventual reported storm behaviors. Using Stormcell Identification table "like" parameters for each storm we can monitor polarity shifts, 5 minute trends and other useful data including the potential for significant hail. A special Sorting process is used as well to better clarify the lightning data that is incoming.	Nowcast Saved on the Fly, Daily Summary Text Reports, and Daily Archive File. RAW Data will also be collected and written to CD and later analyzed in post analysis with a very unigue Analysis Tool that is being built. A RAW data file is generated for most events. A special tool is used to process this data to make it available in many forms including EXCEL spreadsheet files.	IBM PC Files, Nowcast, Daily Summary, and Daily Archive, RAW Data file during actual storms.
Sferics Detector	Astute Solutions	To measure Electromagnetic Radiation and collect pulse shape, pulse polarity, and relative timing between events of a burst (multiple pulses in a short period of time, and direction-of-arrival among other items still in development	Percentage of narrow pulse widths, Pulse polarity and widths components, Logarithmic plot of total and burst activity. Percentage positive events for burst and total activity. Timing factor change for the last three readouts (15 mins). The time-between-events timing factor. Range of percentage positive events for total activity across the peak. Range of percentage positive events for burst activity across the peak. peak direction limits , timing factor and burst polarity factors	IBM PC, Daily File
NEXTSTORM w/Boltek Storm Tracker Hardware	Astrogenic	To Collect Lightning Flash Data and to monitor storm cells as they are classified in real time as storms and their movement and intensity, as well as polarity trend data for each cell being monitored	Total Lightning Plot of strikes and their location, storm cell identification, movement and TRAC data regarding each individually identified cell or storm with polarity information as well.	IBM PC, Daily File, TRAC Files, date/timestamped screen captures, and other data as it becomes available.

Other proposed platforms include Electrostatic Field Meter, Electric Field Mill, Portable Lightning Tracker, Radio Telescope to look at Vertical and Horizontal Lightning Components using a dual channel spectrometer / interferometer. We may try to build other Detector(s) if time permits and the resources are made available to accomplish this task. Also, external datasets are welcomed for this project. It is also important to note that the Sferics system will likely have an output that allows a second PC to utilize data and combine it with other lightning data from other sources creating in affect a users terminal that provides a comprehensive heads up display for operational use, development of such a work station is the next logical step in the process of understanding the data and finding the means to utilize the data in an effective manner. The commercial interests in this project will be creating further enhancements to their respective products and software that will be utilized as well over the course of the study.

Here is what our Commerical Participants are working on!

Aninoquisi Software Design is working on upgrading their present software to take full advantage of the data that is collected via Boltek's Hardware. Boltek continues to improve their line of equipment and software. Astrogenic is working on a eventual commercial release of software called NEXSTORM, that utilizes the Boltek Hardware. Astute Solutions has continued to improve the hardware and software they have designed. Stormwise has recently revamped their line of commercial products to reflect the need for more advanced warning of lightning and improved software for monitoring lightning in and around the area of the sensor(s). All of these commercial companies reflect advances in technology and or current understanding of lightning and continue to address the need to advance these technologies. In totality, we now have a very good commercial environment, and synergy to drive the advancement of the science past research to the operational nowcasting arena.

Project Participants

Name	Organization	E-Mail Address	Webpage Address	Area of Interest
R. W. "Dick" Fergus	Astute Solutions	rfergus@delphi.com	www.theramp.net/sferics	Atmospheric Electromagnetic Radiation as Related to Severe Weather and Tornadoes
James McCallie	McCallie Mfg. Corp.	stormwise@topher.net	www.stormwise.com	Lightning Detection, Lightning Frequency and Electric Field Sensing
Robert Boll	Boltek Corporation	rboll@boltek.com	www.boltek.com	Lightning Detection and Electric Field Measurements
John S. Sturtevant	Metsource Meteorological Research Facility	met71@hotmail.com	www.fireline.org/sturtevant/	Nowcasting using Lightning Signatures that are useful to Operational Forecasting
Mark Mears/Charles Ryan	Aninoquisi Software Design	mmears@aninoquisi.com	www.aninoquisi.com	Development of Lightning Detection Software and Forecasting Algorithms

Proposals Submitted or in Draft

Principal Investigator(s)	Proposal Title	Status of Proposal	Agency Submitted
John S. Sturtevant	LIDIA (LIghtning Detection and Information Analysis)	Being Drafted

Professional Papers in Progress

Author	Proposed Title	Status of Paper	Submitted for Publication to:
John S. Sturtevant	Forecast Applications Using Lightning Data: Nowcasting Hail, Microbursts, and Flash Flood Potential	Completed in 1999	Not Submitted
Charles Ryan, Mark Mears, John S. Sturtevant	Forecast Applications Using Lightning Data: Nowcasting!	Paper in Progress	Work in Progress

Organizations and Individuals that have expressed interest in this Project.

Please note the names appearing here do not constitute involvement or an endorsement of this project

These individuals have expressed interest or provided comments useful to this project: Francis J. Merceret, Ph.D. - KSC NASA/ Weather Office, Stephen Hodanish - Electrification and Severe Weather Specialist - NWS Pueblo CO, Bard A. Zajac - Virtual Institute for Satellite Integration Training (VISIT) - Colorado State University - Fort Collins, Colorado, Prof. Nels Shirer - PSU, Dr. Greg Forbes - The Weather Channel

We thank everyone who has expressed interest in our project and hope you will continue to visit this webpage for future updates and news as well as how to get your own copy of archived data and any other information generated by this project.

Link Reports or additions send e-mail to met71@hotmail.com

E-Mail: Comments, Suggestions, and feedback welcomed

Some of the Significant References Being Utilized for this Project

(references in-complete)

Buechler, D.E., H. Christian, S. Goodman, 1994, Rainfall
Estimation Using Lightning Data, 7th Conference on Satellite
Meteorology, AMS, Boston, Mass.

Buechler, D.E., S.J. Goodman, E.W. McCaul, K. Knupp, 1996,
Cloud to Ground Lightning Activity, within Tornadic
Supercells in the Tennessee Valley, 18th Conference on Severe
Local Storms, AMS, Boston, Mass., 499 - 503.

Buechler, D.E., R.J. Blakeslee, H.J. Christian, R. Creasey,
K. Driscoll, S.J. Goodman, D.M. Mach, 1996, Lightning
Activity in Tornadic Storm Observed by Optical Transient
Detector (OTD), 18th Conference on Severe Local Storms, AMS,
Boston, Mass., 494 - 498.

Chaston, Peter R., 1999, Thunderstorms, Tornadoes, and Hail,
Kearney, MO, 224 pp.

Check It Out - Severe Weather, 96-06, HQ AWS, XON, Scott AFB.

Doswell, Charles A., III, 1985, The Operational Meteorology
of Convective Weather, Volume II, Stormscale Analysis, NOAA
Technical Memorandum ERL ESG15, 193 - 203.

FYI #17, Lightning Detection Systems, FYI Series, US Air
Force Weather Agency (DOD).

Goodman, Steven, J. R. Raghaven, R. Ramachandran, D,
Buechler, S. Hodanish, D. Sharp, E. Williams, B. Bold, A
Matlin, M. Weber, 1998, Total Lightning and Radar Storm
Characteristics Associated with Severe Storms In Central
Florida, AMS 19th Conference on Severe Local Storms, 639 -
642.

Hallet, John, 1994, Conference on Atmospheric Electricity:
Thunderstorm Electrification, St. Louis Missouri, 4-8 October
1993, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume
75, No. 11, November 1994. American Meteorological Society,
Boston, Mass., 2159 - 2163.

Henz, John F., 1996, Innovative Re-Construction of a Western
Flash Flood using Cloud to Ground Lightning, Radar
Reflectivity, and Surface Relationships, 18th Conference on
Severe Local Storms, AMS, Boston, Mass., 474 - 478.

Holle, Ronald L., R. Lopez, 1993, Overview of Real Time
Lightning Detection Systems and their Meteorological Uses,
NOAA Technical Memorandum, ERL NSSL 102, NSSL / NOAA.

Kessler, Edwin, 1983, Instruments and Techniques for
Thunderstorm Observation and Analysis - 2nd Edition,
University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 268 pp.

Knapp, David I., 1994, Using Cloud to Ground Lightning Data
to Identify Tornadic Thunderstorms Signatures, and Nowcast
Severe Weather, National Weather Digest, Volume 19, No. 2,
National Weather Association, Montgomery, Alabama, 35 - 42.

Krider, Philip E., R. Roble, R. Anderson, K. Beard, W. Chameides,
A. Few, G. Gregori, W. Gringel, D. Hofmann, W. Hoppel, E. Kessler,
P. Krehbiel, L. Lanzerotti, Z. Levin, H. Ochs, R. Orville, 
G. Reid, A. Richmond, J. Rosen, W. Rust, I. Tzur, M. Uman,
J. Willet, T. Usselman, The Earth's Electrical Environment,
1996, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 263 pp.

MacGorman, Donald R., C. Church, D. Burgess, C. Doswell, R.
Davies-Jones, 1993, Lightning in Tornadic Storms: A Review,
The Tornado, It's Structure, Dynamics, and Hazards,
Geophysical Monograph 79, American Geophysical Union, 173 -
182.

MacGorman, Donald R., D. Burgess, C. Morgenstern, 1993,
Positive Cloud to Ground Lightning in Tornadic Storms. AMS
Conference on Atmospheric Electricity, J-34 - J-39.

MacGorman, Donald R., D. Burgess, 1994, Positive Cloud to
Ground Lightning in Tornadic Storms and Hail Storms, Monthly
Weather Review, Volume 122, No. 8, AMS, Boston Mass, 1671 -
1697.

MacGorman, Donald R., M. Filiaggi, K. Hondl, 1996, Cloud to
Ground Lightning in the Lahoma Oklahoma Storm of August 17,
1994, 18th Conference on Severe Local Storms, American
Meteorological Society, Boston, Mass., 57-59.

MacGorman, Donald R., W. Rust, 1998, The Electrical Nature of
Storms, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 442 pp.

McCallie, James, McCallie Mfg, Greeneville, TX. Personal 
Communications.

McCaul, Bill, USRA, Global and Hydrology Center, Huntsville,
Alabama. Personal Communications.

Mosher, F. R., 1989, Uses of Real Time Lightning Data,
National Severe Storms Lab, Norman, OK.

National Technology Transfer Center, 1999, Wheeling Jesuit 
University, Wheeling, WV, Research Leads and how to proceed
for procurement. 

Safir Commercial Literature.

Schlatter, Thomas, 1997, Weather Queries: When Lightning
Strikes, Weatherwise, June/July 1997, P. 40.

Uman, Martin A., 1969, Lightning, Dover Publications, New York,
298 pp. 

Uman, Martin A., 1971, All About Lightning, Dover Publications,
New York, 167 pp.

Williams, Earle, B. Bodi, A. Matlin, M. Weber, S. Hodenish,
D. Sharp, S. Goodman, R. Raghavan, D. Buechler, 1998, Total
Lightning as a Severe Weather Diagnostic in Baroclinic
Systems in Central Florida, 19th Conference on Severe Local
Storms, AMS, Boston, Mass, 643 - 647.

Copyright © 2002/2003 All Rights Reserved - John S. Sturtevant (et. al)
Page last updated to update LMA URL: July 20, 2009 by TLS.