Today's Lightning Detections

                 

The CabooltureWeather live lightning strike map and storm tracker for South East Queensland is a live view of where lightning strikes are occurring in Eastern Australia, or you can use the replay buttons to view the last hours activity. You can also view storm cells in the area.



Latest Detected Lightning Strike
Last Strike Bearing Distance Strike Type
10:08 19.7° (True) 448Km -IC



Today's History
Total Strikes Total Noise Close Strikes (Within 50Km) Total +CG Total -CG Total +IC Total -IC
305 23 0 41  -  13.44% 20  -  6.56% 23  -  7.54% 221  -  72.46%



Current Storms
Storm ID Detected Bearing Distance Last Activity Intensity Trend Current Strike Rate Peak
Strike Rate		 Total Strikes +CG -CG +IC -IC
No Storms Have Been Detected Within 600Km of Caboolture

Live Lightning Strike Map

The live lightning strike map requires Adobe Flash. If your browser does not run flash click here for a static version, which updates every minute.

How to use the live and real time lightning strike map

  
 
Replay - Stop showing live and real time lightning strikes and replay all lightning strikes from the last hour. This is very useful in seeing which direction the storm cells are moving in. Press the stop button to return to the live view.
  
0. Unfiltered - All strikes are shown
1. Clusters - Show only strikes in a cell
2. Cloud to Ground - Show only CG strikes
3. CG Clusters - Show only CG strikes in cells
4. Density - Show the density of the cells
5. Storm cells - Show only defined storm cells
  
Strike Age - Reduce the time lightning strikes stay on the map. The default is 60 minutes, however this can be reduced down to 5 minutes when there are particularly active storms within Eastern Australia.


The above lightning data is not imported from any third party and is generated by BellmereWeather's Boltek StormTracker lightning detector, which is mounted on the weather equipment mast. The StormTracker works by detecting the radio signals produced by lightning strikes and these are the same signals you can hear on an regular AM radio during a thunderstorm. StormTracker's direction-finding antenna provides direction information while storm distance is calculated from received signal strength. This data is then plotted onto the map above, together with the type of lightning strike and it's polarity. During intense local storm activity, radio signals from distant lightning strikes may be "drowned out" and may not be shown on the map.



Strike
 A lightning strike that has been detected by the lightning detector and has been calculated as a proper strike and not background noise. This can be any type of lightning with either a positive or negative charge.
Close Strike A strike of lightning, which has been calculated to being within a 50Km radius of Caboolture.  This can be any type of lightning with either a positive or negative charge.
+ CG



A positively charged cloud to ground strike of lightning. A positive cloud to ground strike usually has a long continuing current and are thought to make up about 5% of all strikes globally (1).   These strikes originally high in the anvil of the storm cloud and are typically six to ten time stronger than negatively charged lightning strikes (2)  and the voltage difference for positive lightning is considerably higher, due to the tens of thousands of additional meters the strike must travel.   These are considered the most dangerous strikes of lightning and are often the cause of fires and property destruction.
(1) - (2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning
-CG



 A negativly charged cloud to ground strike of lightning. A negatively charged lightning originates from the middle or bottom of a storm cloud. Positively charged lightning can strike for many miles beyond the center of a storm, whereas negatively charged lightning tends to strike near the center of a storm. (1)
(1) http://www.eduplace.com/science/hmsc/3/f/cricket/cktcontent_3f133.shtml
+IC / -IC

 A Intra-Cloud strike of lighting. Tese are the most common type of lightning, called intra cloud lightning, strikes between positive and negative areas in the same cloud. The bolt is not usually visible, but rather appears like a broad flash in the sky. Intra-cloud lightning is far more prevalent than cloud-to-ground lightning, and the mean peak currents in intra cloud lightning tend to be smaller. Intra cloud flashes that leave cloud base and approach ground, but do not reach ground, are called air discharges. Intra cloud lightning that leaves cloud top and heads upwards are sometimes referred to as cloud-to-ionosphere flashes. (1)
(1) http://www.weather-plus.net/LightningDetector.html