Short term lightning hazard predictions

Thunderstorms and lightning pose a safety risk to people spending time outdoors for professional or recreational purposes and are potentially hazardous to machinery and equipment operated outdoors. Thus, entities such as airports, sports venues and military operations employ safety procedures that include timely warnings and observations of the onset and duration of lightning hazards. These procedures, while crucial to ensure people safety, can have substantial impacts on the efficiency of operations, and thus may vary greatly depending on a particular application. NCAR has been working with the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) to develop capabilities that enable timely warnings of lightning threats for people and material involved in outdoor testing at the Army test ranges. In addition, working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) enabled exploring a different lightning prediction application, focused on lightning safety for ramp and airport grounds maintenance workers. Notable improvements have been made recently to the previously developed lightning monitoring and prediction capabilities to capture all phases of lightning evolution (i.e., initiation, mature cores, and anvil) and to provide longer lead times and higher update rates. Comparisons of the lightning detection and prediction capability for different applications and impacts on safety vs. efficiency are discussed in this paper.