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What is lightning?
Lightning is the transfer of significant charge between two charged objects. Lightning discharges can occur cloud-to-cloud (C-C), cloud-to-air (C-A), and cloud-to-ground (C-G). Blikseminslagen.com provides online data on cloud-to-ground lightning. Cloud-to-ground lightning has the greatest impact on our everyday lives. A lightning strike can kill, destroy equipment, start fires, and be responsible for as much as 70% of typical power outages.

Stroke
A lightning event proceeds in several stages the first of which called is "Leaders" which you cannot see. These leaders produce a conductive path to ground that is then used for a large discharge of electrical energy. This discharge is called a "stroke". It is the blinding white flash you see followed by the crash of thunder due to the supersonic expansion of the air as it is heated. The first stroke is often followed by another leader / stroke sequence after a few hundredths of a second. Up to 20 or more sequences of a leader / stroke can occur. and this is why lightning appears to flicker.

Flash
All of the strokes that occur within one second and within 10 kilometers of the first stroke are grouped together and called a "Flash". This helps group potentially related electrical events into one single event for viewing.

Real-time
Real-time means the processing of information as it arrives at a central point. A process that does not proceed in "real-time" would perhaps store information before operating on it. In lightning detection systems, the lightning data is communicated from a sensor to a central processing point.

Projection
The earth is roughly a sphere. To view the spherical earth on the flat screen of a monitor requires a bit of fancy math called a projection.

Time-Zone
The www.blikseminslagen.com web site supports all of the major time-zones across Europe. Lightning Observer, Lightning Explorer and Lightning Advisor all utilize the Time Zone variable that you can enter during the subscription process. For a good discussion on time-zones click here.

Acronyms
EUCLID - European Cooperation for Lightning Detection
BLDN - Benelux Lightning Detection Network
CELDN - Central European Lightning Detection Network