# Lightning strike energy units/meaning?
**URL:** https://community.tempest.earth/t/lightning-strike-energy-units-meaning/20054
**Category:** Developers
**Created:** [February 8, 2023, 12:37pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/lightning-strike-energy-units-meaning/20054 "2023-02-08T12:37:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mteel](https://community.tempest.earth/u/mteel)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2023, 12:37pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/lightning-strike-energy-units-meaning/20054/1 "2023-02-08T12:37:30Z")
Sometimes this value is positive and sometimes it is negative. I’m trying to make sense of how to interpret it.
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### Author:  [@peter](https://community.tempest.earth/u/peter)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2023, 2:25pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/lightning-strike-energy-units-meaning/20054/2 "2023-02-08T14:25:59Z")
The energy field has no units and according to the data sheet of the lighting sensor, the energy value is ‘just a pure number and has no physical meaning’
[https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/588/ams\_AS3935\_Datasheet\_EN\_v5-1214568.pdf](https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/588/ams_AS3935_Datasheet_EN_v5-1214568.pdf) - page 32
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### Author:  [@mteel](https://community.tempest.earth/u/mteel)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2023, 3:50pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/lightning-strike-energy-units-meaning/20054/3 "2023-02-08T15:50:50Z")
So no explanation for positive vs negative values? It’s rather useless if we have no concept of what more or less means. More energy, less energy? If that’s the extent of the description, the value is not useful.
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### Author:  [@peter](https://community.tempest.earth/u/peter)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2023, 5:00pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/lightning-strike-energy-units-meaning/20054/4 "2023-02-08T17:00:39Z")
Nope! The WF team themselves have admitted in the past that they have never been able to interpret the energy value and they don’t use it in the official app/webpage. They include it in the API packets simply for completeness and on the off chance that someone else can come along and work out its physical meaning. To me knowledge, no one has managed to do this yet.
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### Author:  [@sunny](https://community.tempest.earth/u/sunny)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2023, 6:02pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/lightning-strike-energy-units-meaning/20054/5 "2023-02-08T18:02:21Z")
But why is it sometimes negative? is this a type decleration mistake (if the number should have been declared as unsigned), or is it perhaps an indication of something else?
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### Author:  [@mark.thistlewaite](https://community.tempest.earth/u/mark.thistlewaite)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2023, 11:53pm UTC](https://community.tempest.earth/t/lightning-strike-energy-units-meaning/20054/6 "2023-02-08T23:53:53Z")
Most likely because it is an unsigned binary value, I have observed it as well and have noted the value seems to go negative as the lightning component of the storm approaches. But the emphasis is on SEEMS.