While the lightning displays and graphs are useful in the Tempest app, I’d also like to be able to pull up a map of my house/station and allow it to plot detected lightning strikes on a map near me, showing the radius the lightning sensor is tracking nearby lightning. That would be super useful.
There are other posts addressing this, but basically, due to the very tight timing tolerances, this will never be able to happen with the Tempest lightning sensors. They are not designed for such.
To get what you want, check out Lightning & Thunderstorms - World Map or Blitzortung.org - Live Lightning Map.
Thanks for the info! I searched for another post on here about it but couldn’t find it. Good to know on the maps.
I have used the Blitzortung sites before, plus I have access to ENTLN through Earth Networks Sferic Maps, Baron Threat Net, and AllisonHouse, so I use those maps regularly for tracking lightning near me. I bought the Tempest to compare lightning alerts between ENTLN and having an on-site lightning sensor since I wanted to know when lightning is actually near my house. So far with the intense storms I’ve had since installing it, it’s working well.
Nathan Parker
Another Tempest user texted me and wondered if there was a way that WeatherFlow could add a lightning map using the Tempest Lightning Network feed in WeatherFlow One, but restricting it to a 25 mile radius of the Lat/Lon of the installed Tempest sensor for non-One customers. That way we’d some form of basic lightning map in our Tempest app, but if we wanted CONUS Lightning, we’d pay to upgrade to One.
Any thoughts? @dsj @tony.mcgee @WeatherFlowTeam
WeatherFlow-Tempest sent out an Investor Update just yesterday with this interesting bullet point under new initiatives and partnerships:
- Formed an exclusive strategic partnership to create The Tempest Lightning Network.
More details here:
https://weatherflow.com/weatherflow-tempest-launches-tempest-lightning-network/
This feature request may be in motion behind the scenes…
This joint effort with TOA is exclusively available through TempestOne only for a nice sum of money at the moment.
tweatherman
True, and I’d like to see a limited version of this in the Tempest app. In order for WeatherFlow to justify the costs of the TOA feed, I know they need to charge $$$ for CONUS access to it in TempestOne. It would be fun though if they’d offer a super-limited version of it (25 mile radius of Lat/Lon of Tempest station would be sufficient) to users who’ve installed a Tempest as a “thank you” for hosting a Tempest station.
Very much echo that suggestion.
tweatherman
Many thoughts! Maps (lightning and otherwise) are a huge part of the TempestOne Web App and how best to present weather maps in the Tempest [Home] app is a regular topic of discussion and @parkernathan’s suggestion of a “super-limited version” of what you get in TempestOne is a great idea. Lightning Map is not on the current priority list for the Tempest [Home] app, but vote for this topic and it’ll get there eventually!
Great to know! I’d love to see it happen. I may even be interested in eventually purchasing TempestOne (do you offer a free trial I can take for a test drive?), but I would also want this limited lightning map in the Tempest app so I can quickly glance at nearby lightning when I’m not storm tracking in TempestOne.