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LightningsElisabeth Lamprecht

Comenius 2010

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List of contents1. ALDIS: history, tasks and products2. EUCLID3. Lightning radar: radar positions national and

international, how it works4. Beginning of lightning5. Different kinds of lightning6. Statistical evaluation, visualising7. How to behave during lightnings

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ALDIS• ALDIS: Austrian Lightning Detection and Information System• Cooperation of OVE (Austrian Union of Electronics), Siemens and the

federation of locating and documating lightnings in Europe• ALDIS delivers exact lightning facts to weather services, insurance

companies, experts and energy supply companies.

• ALDIS was put into operation in 1992, after one year of testing. Since that ALDIS has registered storm activities all over Austria and has saved these information in a data bank.

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EUCLID• EUCLID: EUropean Cooperation for LIghtning Detection

• EUCLID is a cooperation of different lihghtning detecting companies all over Europe.

• Members: Austria, Hungary, Germany, France, Finland, Luxembourg,

Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovenia, Italy, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, …

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Lightning-radar-national• In Austria there are 8 so called LS7000 sensores, that register the lightning

activities.• The measured information is send digitally to a lihtning processor.• Each sensor has a registering radius of 400 km. Consequently every

lightning signal is registered by at least 4 sensores.• The exactness of measurement is about 100 m.

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Lightning-radar-international

• The 8 ALDIS-sensores are integrated in the European EUCLID-net.

• The picture on the right shows all lightning sensores in Europe (red points).

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Lightning-radar-How it works

• more information: time, polarisation (positiv or negativ), power amplitude kA.

• For calculating the location of the lightning you have to use trigonometry.

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Beginning of lightning• The lightning discharge has its origin in the charged storm cloud.

• Within the storm cloud the vertical wind produces a separation of charges.

• The discharge follows 3 steps: leading lightning, catching discharge, main discharge.

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Different kinds of lightning• Cloud-cloud-lightning• Cloud-ground-lightning• Ground-cloud-lightning• Positive and negative

lightning• Kugel-lightning• Elms-fire• Line-lightning• Area-lightning

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Statistical evaluation• In the picture the average lightning activity during 1992 and 2001 is shown.• There are important regionally differences.

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Statistical evaluation

1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 20100

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OOESTMK

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How to behave during lightning

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Thanks for your attention

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Quellen

• www.aldis.at

• www.euclid.org