Perhaps it can be that we neglect the 'atmospheric charges' that build up... Even in a 'clear sky'... 'ice crystals', 'dry air', 'normal' atmospheric discharges'... not all signals are "cloud to ground" or even a 'human sensible' discharge. EMF can be produced though we don't sense it.
almost any discharge between cloud and cloud, cloud and ionosphere, cloud to earth, etc could be 'recorded' as a 'flash', even though it wasn't true 'lightning' as we think of it,...
True, one of the irritating issues about lightning detection is 'false positives'... and they are caused by many things... that is one priority issue for the developers.. one reason Tobi enhanced the LMO pages to show "all"... it's an issue with any system, commercial, or even our 'hobbyist' BO.
However, the extent of the 'false positives' you noted would, to this observer, indicate there was a lot of electrical activity in the clouds.
For example... the Wife heard thunder today. I didn't. We had clouds nearby. I watched closely. Finally heard thunder. Guess what? No signals from my BO station... that is, at least they weren't detected by enough other stations to be identified and located.
So, it works both ways.
Mike
almost any discharge between cloud and cloud, cloud and ionosphere, cloud to earth, etc could be 'recorded' as a 'flash', even though it wasn't true 'lightning' as we think of it,...
True, one of the irritating issues about lightning detection is 'false positives'... and they are caused by many things... that is one priority issue for the developers.. one reason Tobi enhanced the LMO pages to show "all"... it's an issue with any system, commercial, or even our 'hobbyist' BO.
However, the extent of the 'false positives' you noted would, to this observer, indicate there was a lot of electrical activity in the clouds.
For example... the Wife heard thunder today. I didn't. We had clouds nearby. I watched closely. Finally heard thunder. Guess what? No signals from my BO station... that is, at least they weren't detected by enough other stations to be identified and located.
So, it works both ways.
Mike
