Lightning data provides valuable information to support decision making for several user groups at airports. This document discusses how lightning detection is used for thunderstorm and cloud type reporting, thunderstorm avoidance in terminal approach areas, and low level wind shear awareness. It also covers using lightning warnings for airport ground operations. While lightning bolts contain a large amount of energy, successfully capturing and storing that energy for practical use is extremely difficult due to the unpredictability of lightning strikes and challenges converting the high voltage to usable alternating current.

2.  Lightning data provides valuable information that supports
decision-making within several user groups at an airport.
This webinar covers the following subjects:
 Lightning detection technologies used at airports
 Lightning use for thunderstorm and cloud type reporting at
airports
 Lightning use for thunderstorm avoidance in the terminal
approach area
 Lightning use for improved low level wind shear situational
awareness
 Cloud-to-ground lightning warnings for airport ground
operations personnel

3.  Since the late 1980s, there have been several attempts to
investigate the possibility of harvesting lightning energy
 A lightning bolt has over five billion Joules of energy.
 But it is incredibly difficult to predict when and where lightning
will strike even during a thunderstorm .
 There are difficulties in storing the energy and then converting it
to alternating current so it can run your appliances.
 Finally, much of the lightning bolt’s energy goes into heating the
surrounding air to temperatures greater than the surface of the
Sun. So even if you managed to overcome the problems of
collecting, storing and converting the energy from the lightning
to make it useful, you would still only be harnessing a small
proportion of the lightning bolt’s power.

4. A typical lightning bolt produces about 10,000 amps
but some bolts, such as the one that struck the Apollo
spacecraft upon liftoff in the 60’s, have measured well
over 100,000 amps.
 There’s no question thunderstorms generate a
tremendous amount of electricity. Ironically, when you
convert a lightning bolt into watts, an even larger
number is produced. But when you convert the
lightning into kilowatt-hours it’s rather insignificant.
In fact, the average lightning bolt contains about 250
kilowatt-hours of electricity.

5.  it’s simply not economical to build the infrastructure
required to capture a lightning bolt, which is why no
one has ever tried to commercialize lightning as a
source of electricity.
 A typical lightning bolt energy is enough to power a
car for about 180 to 910 miles (290 to 1,450
kilometers), and certainly enough to charge a cell
phone, if you happen to be standing near a bolt and a
transformer that can regulate the voltage. Scientists at
the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom
recently succeeded in simulating just such a scenario,
prompted by phone maker Nokia.

6. “This discovery proves that the device can be charged with a
current that passes through the air, and is a huge step towards
understanding a natural power like lightning and harnessing its
energy,”