Overview
WSI Corporation is pleased to offer real-time lightning stroke data from
the North American Precision Lightning Network
(NAPLN) and
the Global Lightning Network (GLN)
through the Unidata program. NAPLN and GLN data
are made available to universities at no cost over the Internet for
educational and research purposes.
Registration is required to request this data, and the free
feed is available on an annually renewed basis. Registered users will
receive NAPLN data from the primary and backup servers using the
Unidata Local Data Manager (LDM) software. The decoders provided by Unidata
for GEMPAK and McIDAS software packages support this data format. Details
for configuring your LDM configuration will be sent after registration is
complete and the distribution LDM servers have been configured to allow
your system.
Registration
To register, all users must read and agree to the Conditions of Use of WSI Lightning Data by Unidata Participants
associated with this proprietary data set. There are a number of restrictions,
including the requirement that all users must be either full-time faculty or
staff at the institution, and prohibition of any data redistribution or commercial
use or gain from the data.
Please visit:
WSI Lightning Data via Unidata
to register for the NAPLN data and to review the complete description of
the restrictions on NAPLN data use.
Responses and access to data are generally granted in less than 1 week.
Please send technical/product questions about the lightning data to:
Data Details
NAPLN data are bounded by 5N to 65N, 52W to 140W. Real-time data are collected
in a 1-minute bin, and contain cloud-to-ground lightning stroke data and some cloud flash
discharges.
For additional technical details, see WSI Corporation's Lightning Data
and NAPLN
pages.
The WSI LDM server will be the primary distribution point for GLN
data, failover feed support will be provided by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Daytona Beach).
Data are provided in the following format:
| NAPLN extended format data record contents (ASCII) |
Header
Data record containing comma-separated:
-
Date/Time[CCYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.msec]
-
Latitude[+-DD.fffffff]
-
Longitude[+-DDD.fffffff]
(west negative convention)
- Signed peak amplitude (with sign indicating polarity, zero -> cloud-to-cloud,intracloud, cloud-to-air)
- Error ellipse semi-major and semi-minor axes [km] and orientation of semi-major axis
|
Example: NAPLN extended data format |
LIGHTNING-NAPLN1EX,2008-09-18T21:54:00,2008-09-18T21:52:55
2008-09-18T21:52:45.785,50.4214248,-90.1344455,-38.8,0.5,0.25,0
2008-09-18T21:52:46.330,18.5033344,-90.182308,-34.2,0.25,0.25,41
2008-09-18T21:52:46.379,44.1645323,-103.0792998,-25.0,0.25,0.25,78
... |
Frequently Asked Questions
-
What happened to the USPLN data?
The USPLN data feed is still available: see USPLN Data Available via the Unidata LDM
for details. For new subscribers,
the NAPLN data feed, which has a slightly larger extent than the USPLN feed, is probably preferred.
-
Should I choose NAPLN or GLN data?
If your research focuses on North America or the continental United States, choose the
NAPLN feed. The Global Lightning Network feed is a composite of the NAPLN data over the
bounds 5N to 65N, 52W to 140W and the GLN data elsewhere.
See GLN Data Available via the Unidata LDM
for additional details.
-
Why do I have to register?
WSI Corporation makes lightning data available at no cost
to the educational and research communities subject to
several restrictions outlined in the Conditions of Use of WSI Lightning Data by Unidata Participants.
The registration process ensures
that you have read and agree to the data access policy.
Registration is renewed anually to ensure that current
users of
the WSI data are familiar with the data access policy.
Restrictions on use of the WSI data include the requirement that
all users must be either full-time faculty or staff at the institution,
and prohibition of any data redistribution or commercial use or gain
from the data.
-
The data record formats don't match what I'm using
NAPLN data are available in two formats. The "extended" format shown above is the
preferred format for current subscribers, but data are also provided in an older
format for which records are defined as follows:
| NAPLN original format data record contents (ASCII) |
Header
Data record containing comma-separated:
-
Date/Time[CCYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS]
-
Latitude[+-DD.fffffff]
-
Longitude[+-DDD.fffffff]
(west negative convention)
- Signed peak amplitude (with sign indicating polarity, zero -> cloud-to-cloud, intracloud, cloud-to-air)
- Multiplicity (always 1)
|
Example: NAPLN original data format |
LIGHTNING-NAPLN1,2008-09-18T21:54:00,2008-09-18T21:52:55
2008-09-18T21:52:45.785,50,-90.1344455,-38.8,1
2008-09-18T21:52:46.330,18,-90.182308,-34.2,1
2008-09-18T21:52:46.379,44,-103.0792998,-25.0,1
... |
Example
The animated image below is provided by WSI as an example display of North American Precision Lightning Network data.
