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Joined: 2024-05-03
We had a spell of thunder in Central Scotland on 3rd May and the Real Time Lightning page indicated the strikes near me, which tied in well with the sounds. However they soon disappeared off the display, and even selecting the -24hr option did not bring them back, though I can still see the earlier ones to the east before they reached here.
I've noticed this before, strikes that were picked up in real time but then disappeared from the -1h -24h and archive pages.
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Joined: 2025-05-28
That’s a great observation, and you’re not the only one who’s noticed this kind of behavior.
What you’re describing sounds like a data filtering or post-processing issue. Sometimes, lightning networks (like Blitzortung or similar) show preliminary real-time data that later gets removed if the strike couldn’t be reliably triangulated by enough stations—especially in areas with limited coverage like parts of Scotland. So even if it looked accurate in the moment (and matched what you heard), it might not meet the backend confidence threshold for inclusion in the archive or -24h views.
It can definitely be frustrating when you know it happened but the historical record doesn’t show it!
Hope that helps clear it up a bit!
