Blitzortung Lightning Monitor - Track lightning strikes

User-friendly map application that visualizes real-time full-area lightning data from the blitzortung.org lightning location network project. Get instant updates on the current thunderstorm situation.

Features include:

- Real-time display of lightning data

- Historical lightning data from the past 24 hours

- Coverage for Europe, North & South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia/New Zealand

- Color-coded lightning strike times

- Fast response with reduced data volume

- Current lightning strike time and count

- Optional user location display

- Alarm function indicating storm distance/direction

- Background service for alarms

- Notifications and vibration alerts supported

- Single stroke display for blitzortung.org participants

The raster display ensures smooth performance even during high thunderstorm activity. Blitzortung.org participants can view strike locations individually.

For translation contributions, contact the software author.

Note: The blitzortung.org network focuses mainly on Australia's eastern region and US West Coast. To expand coverage in other areas, consider joining the network.

Using GPS location provider with background service may drain battery; use network or passive location provider for background operations.

Main screen

Elements

Top left – Legend

- Time range for color coded strike activity age used on map:

    “white”: latest lightning activity withing the last 10 minutes…

    “dark orange”: latest lightning activity between 40 or 50 minutes ago

    “dark red”: latest lightning activity older thant 50 minutes

- Additional information

    Region

   - Europe, North America, Asia, …

   - Local, for limited local area

   - Not given for Global data

    Grid baseline e. g. “Grid: 10km”

    Count threshold setting

   - Not displayed for inactive threshold

   - E. g. “# > 5” for a threshold of 5

   - Only raster areas with strike counts greater or equalt to the threshold are displayed

- Tap the legend to open “quick settings” dialog:

Top right – Menu / History

realtime

history

- Open menu (on devices without menu button)

- Browser through history

    Time step can be changed in the settings.

    Can be used to browse through the last 24 hours of ligthning activity.

Bottom left – Alarm radar

active

inactive

- Shows activity by distance for the current location

- Requires

    lightning data

    known location

    realtime mode

- Tap to center map around location

- Long press to open bigger version of Alarm radar

Bottom right – Histogram

- Shows the development of strike rate over the given time period (for the data region)

- Tap to zoom out on region

Map content

The lightning activity is shown on the map in tiles with variable size (5 km, 10 km, 25 km, 50 km, 100 km). Each tile with recorded lightning acticitiy in the selected time range gets colored with respect to the most recent activity within the current interval. The numbers which appear inside the tiles show the number of lighning events recorded in the area of the tile during the relevant time interval.

Menu

Preferences

Open Detailed App settings

Alarms

Open the alarm radar:

Color coding of last strike activity is shown according to the legend information.

Application log

Show dialog with internal app application log. Can be used for immediate debugging. Creates an Email to send in the application log to get help.

Change log

Show dialog containing recent app features by version number

Information

Show a dialog with app related information.

Map usage

Operations:

- Double tap to zoom in

- Pinch to zoom

- Slide to move

- Long press to select location for manual location mode