How do lightning detectors work?
Automatic devices to detect cloud-to-ground (CG) strikes were developed in the 1970s and have since become common in America, Europe, and Australia. These detection networks sense the radio-frequency pulses that travel outward from a lightning bolt. Each system has several antennae, separated by hundreds of kilometers, that give the direction of a strike; the strike’s actual location is where the vectors intersect. The United States has been monitored since 1994 by a single combined network operated by Global Atmospherics, Inc., whose displays often show up on television weathercasts. This ground-based network does not provide information on in-cloud or cloud-to-cloud (CC) lightning. Satellites can also observe lightning. Two NASA satellites are now keeping tabs on lightning around the globe. The Optical Transient Detector was launched in 1995 and provides daytime as well as nighttime reports of lightning activity. A similar, recently upgraded instrument, the Lightning Imaging Sensor,
