Hi all,

In the absence of freely available radar data for Greece, I've developed and run an app showing where it's currently raining/snowing in the country based on real rainfall intensity observations, as well as extrapolated snowfall areas (just saw that I can't post a link here, but here's the current screenshot):

[attachment=5240]

The next natural step for me is to add lightning data to the map. I've already emailed Egon but i know he receives plenty of messages already.  What is the recommended course of action from my side, please? The page is free to use.

Thank you!

Hi all -

I am a meteorologist who has zero DIY skills, zero electrical or solder background. 

Can someone concisely tell me the different pieces of equipment needed, and whether or not I can purchase each fully produced? I am disabled and do the best I can. I am willing to pay a premium to have a plug and play solution. 

Thank You!
Steve

Hi all,

I sent a registration / data access request via email a while back and haven't heard back — wanted to flag it here in case the forum is a better channel, and in case anyone with context can point me to the right next step.

What I'm building: IsItWindy.com, a free, ad-free pre-flight weather dashboard for hot-air balloon pilots. The lightning widget would show nearby Blitzortung-sourced strikes on a small map alongside winds aloft, METAR/TAF, and the rest of the pre-flight picture. Strictly advisory — the page already carries a disclaimer that the dashboard is one tool among many and not a substitute for an official briefing.

Quick profile:

Non-commercial. Free to users, no ads, no paid lightning tier.
Server-side only. Credentials stay on the backend; no scraping, no re-serving as our own.
Light load — polling scoped to the user's location, cached.
Attribution: every lightning view will show "Data: Blitzortung.org / LightningMaps.org" with a link back.
I'm a commercial balloon pilot myself in Phoenix, AZ — happy to look at running a station here if it would help the network in this corner of the country.
If there's a registration form I missed or a different channel I should be using, please point me at it and I'll get it sorted today.

Thanks — the Blitzortung community project is remarkable.

I use the latest version of Chrome on an HP PC .

When I select the Realtime Maps tab the window that comes up shows detectors and vectors but there no longer are any MAPS in the background.

Is there a fix for this?

https://www.blitzortung.org/en/live_ligh...php?map=30

(Edit: URLs are not allowed, so removing them, mentally add them where appropriate)

Tried to search this forum with all the relevant keywords but could not find this to have been discussed. Sorry in advance if I'm mistaken.

I am writing software to fetch the recent strikes as per documentation, and while everything else seems to work perfectly, the "time" parameter in the URL seems to be ignored.

/Data/Protected/last_strikes.php?time=1778840631155816319&number=30000&west=10&east=40&north=70&south=50&sig=0

done at time 1778840931155816319 (i.e. the request limit is 5 min earlier) results in response containing (as last record, there were 1188 records, so the "number" parameter did not limit anything either)

{"time":1778827480863817500,"lat":60.535376,"lon":33.547539,"alt":0,"pol":0,"mds":14367,"mcg":242,"status":0,"region":1}

Here are the times again with a fixed width font and a space separating seconds from nanoseconds
REQUEST:           1778840631 155816319
REQUEST DONE AT:   1778840931 155816319
RESPONSE:          1778827480 863817500

So the record is almost 4 hours old. I can easily filter those out, but just wondering whether there is a bug or I just do not understand something here. Likely the latter.

Also, the documentation states that the default value of the "time" is "current time stamp", which cannot possibly be true? Wouldn't that filter out all the strikes automatically (and by default!)?

Anyway, being new to this project and community, I have to say that I am deeply impressed by the quality of everything. Especially I love the no-nonsense diagnostic page of the station!

I'm looking to put Lightning tracking onto my website now this website features a drivable car that you can storm chase on a radar map and lightning data that does not work yet because I can't get it to work and i need help with that

On the database page for my station #3072, the image of the last signal is dated 2024-08-09. How does that get updated to the actual last signal which should closer to today's date?

Regards.
Steve KD2OM

My three daughters—ages 9, 12, and 14—were at Camp Mystic during the flooding on July 4, 2025. We are incredibly grateful they are safe, but like many families, we are still working through the emotional impact of that night.

As part of that process, my oldest daughter has become very focused on the lightning she experienced. She vividly remembers the sky turning purple, a tree outside her cabin being struck and split, and a period of time when the lightning felt almost constant—so much so that she says she could read her book by its light. These memories are deeply imprinted, and as we walk through therapy, we’ve found that gently grounding her experiences in verified facts can be incredibly helpful.

I have spent some time on the website and am able to see the entire state of Texas during the time period I am looking for.  But I would like to find more specialized data - a summary, list, confirmation of strike frequency, etc.

If at all possible, I would be so grateful for any lightning data you might be able to share for the following:

Date: July 4, 2025
Time window: 1:00 a.m. – 4:00 a.m. (local time)
Location: 30.0085451, -99.3703236

This would mean more to our family—particularly to my daughter’s healing—than I can adequately express.

Thank you for taking a moment to read this.

Hello everyone,

I'm Adrien Revel, technical director at AKER. I'm writing on behalf of artist Marie-Luce Nadal to request access to Blitzortung's historical lightning data for a non-commercial sound art installation.

The project is called "Skin Of the Sky" and premieres June 6, 2026 at the Église Saint-Laurent in Paris during Nuit Blanche. The concept: members of the public call a phone number and confide a wish to the sky. Their voice messages are then spatialized inside the church, triggered and positioned by real lightning strike coordinates. Using an azimuthal equidistant projection centered on the church, each strike maps to a physical direction in the nave. Storms over Sweden send voices from the north, storms over Brazil from the south-west, and so on.

What we find beautiful is the kinship between our projects: Blitzortung is built by a worldwide community of volunteers mapping the electrical activity of the sky; Skin Of the Sky collects anonymous voice messages, the emotional activity of people looking up. Both are participatory, open, and built on collective contribution.

What we need: access to a few days of global archived strike data for offline playback. We do not need real-time access.

Regarding the external project criteria:

• Non-commercial: public artwork, free admission, co-produced with the City of Paris
  
• Original use: lightning data drives spatial sound, not a map or weather tool
  
• Freely accessible to the public
  
• Blitzortung.org credited as data partner in all signage and communications
  
• No redistribution of raw data, used only within the physical installation
  
  

Hello,
I'm a Tableau enthusiast interested in building a lightning map/dashboard.
I admire the Blitzortung project and would like to ask whether there is any approved way to access lightning strike data for a non-commercial visualization project. My intention is to use it to practice geospatial storytelling and data visualization.
If allowed, I can share the finished visualization on my Tableau Public profile, with full credit: public.tableau.com/app/profile/dorian.barosan
Please let me know whether this type of use is permitted and what the correct process would be.
Thank you!