Regional Lighting Strike Activity
Local Strike Activity - Lightning Counter
© 2010, Steve J. Baedke
The data presented on this lightning strike activity graph is collected with a Hobby Boards Lightning Detector. This detector is grounded in my backyard with an eight foot copper grounding rod. The detector is extremely sensitive picking up lightning as much as 60 miles away to the west or east or as far away an 100 miles to the south (Lynchburg, VA).
The detector, though, is sensitive enough that it also picks up many false strikes. These usually are the air conditioner or heat pump for the house, the electric striker used for our gas grill in the backyard, or even my electric stove. It is usually easy to tell the difference between real and false strike as the false strikes generally show up as a sudden very frequent strike pattern, whereas a real storm will show a general increase over time from weak to frequent activity as the storm approaches.