Stormscope

[kortopates]

From AOPA article: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2016/june/29/adsb-advances-advantages
“
In other news from the recent Equip 2020 meeting, more than 20,000 aircraft are now ADS-B equipped. The FAA also announced plans to make more weather data available to ADS-B users within the next year. The proposed products include lightning strikes, turbulence, current and forecast icing, cloud tops, and one-minute AWOS report.”
 
This was back in 2016, so has anyone checked it lately?

Great to see. But lightning, if and when it's included, will still be limited to ground based strike's.


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[jaylw314]

31 minutes ago, kortopates said:

Great to see. But lightning, if and when it's included, will still be limited to ground based strike's.


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I don't quite understand--how could any facility record ground strikes but not cloud strikes?  I can't think of any lightning detection equipment that would ONLY detect one but not the other?

[Piloto]

I use Garmin Pilot internet WX on my Samsung S7 Active. It works pretty good below 10,000ft. Above the updates can take 10 minutes. It shows lightning, winds, satellite, radar, icing and all  METARS. For best cell reception I have mine Velcro to the visor. Very handy for planning on the ground your schedule/routing to avoid weather. Woks anywhere including Europe

José

Edited February 12, 2018 by Piloto

[kortopates]

I don't quite understand--how could any facility record ground strikes but not cloud strikes?  I can't think of any lightning detection equipment that would ONLY detect one but not the other?

What real time lightning data source do you know that includes more than cloud to ground data?


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[jaylw314]

1 hour ago, kortopates said:

What real time lightning data source do you know that includes more than cloud to ground data?


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NOAA uses the Vaisala National Lightning Detection Network.  There data is proprietary, but they purport to be able to detect both cloud and cloud-to-ground strikes, and the ability to distinguish the two.  They don't make clear how, though it seems ground-based magnetic detectors of some type are involved.

Otherwise, there are other lightning detection networks that use sferics, but they use the same technique as strikefinders and cannot easily distinguish between cloud and cloud-to-ground strikes.

[Piloto]

I notice lightning strikes all over the world on land and water on my Garmin Pilot internet wx. To have this kind of coverage they must be using some sort of satellite like GOES-16. 

José

[Hank]

6 hours ago, kortopates said:

Great to see. But lightning, if and when it's included, will still be limited to ground based strike's.


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And even when freshly disseminated, it will be 15 minutes old, just like the rest of the weather they send out. Ever see how much a growing CB can build up in 15 minutes?

Stormscope is "right now", while ADS-, FIS-B, etc., is all "recently." In other words, ADS-B lightning strike data is next to useless.

[Piloto]

8 minutes ago, Hank said:

And even when freshly disseminated, it will be 15 minutes old, just like the rest of the weather they send out. Ever see how much a growing CB can build up in 15 minutes?

Stormscope is "right now", while ADS-, FIS-B, etc., is all "recently." In other words, ADS-B lightning strike data is next to useless.

I don't know about ADS-B lightning delay but the lightning and rainfall on Garmin Pilot internet correlates pretty well with the thunder I hear at home.

José

[ArtVandelay]

And even when freshly disseminated, it will be 15 minutes old, just like the rest of the weather they send out. Ever see how much a growing CB can build up in 15 minutes?

That’s for nexrad radar, for lightning strikes it’s 5 minutes.

 

Unless you are trying to penetrate a heavy TS area, 5 minutes, heck even 15 should be enough to avoid the entire area. I do it all the time. If you want to play dodgeball with TS in IMC, you need onboard radar as well, IMHO.

[jetdriven]

34 minutes ago, teejayevans said:

That’s for nexrad radar, for lightning strikes it’s 5 minutes.

 

Unless you are trying to penetrate a heavy TS area, 5 minutes, heck even 15 should be enough to avoid the entire area. I do it all the time. If you want to play dodgeball with TS in IMC, you need onboard radar as well, IMHO.

The Building cumulus stage can be detected by a stormscope. You can’t get it a anywhere else. Also when flying IFR, it helps you avoid embedded TS, including the deeloping ones that radar doesn’t show yet. And some thunderstorms go from building to mature to dissipating in 15 minutes.  15 minutes is ancient history when they can grow at 6000fpm.  The boxes are cheap Enough you can plug and chug a replacement for a few hundred bucks. 

I paid a grand and installed a WX1000e. It is useful for cross country trips.

Edited February 13, 2018 by jetdriven

[Bob_Belville]

1 hour ago, jetdriven said:

The Building cumulus stage can be detected by a stormscope. You can’t get it a anywhere else. Also when flying IFR, it helps you avoid embedded TS, including the deeloping ones that radar doesn’t show yet. And some thunderstorms go from building to mature to dissipating in 15 minutes.  15 minutes is ancient history when they can grow at 6000fpm.  The boxes are cheap Enough you can plug and chug a replacement for a few hundred bucks. 

I paid a grand and installed a WX1000e. It is useful for cross country trips.

I suspect that folks who do not appreciate the value of StormScope technology have little real experience with an operable unit in summer weather. It's great, potentially life saving, capacity is really for cross country weather flying. ADS-B weather info is nice, particularly keeping an eye on destination conditions trends, but SS is vital to flight safety. 

[bradp]

I noticed the “full boat” adsb panel in the FAA brochure has a strike finder.  

[TonyK]

2 hours ago, Bob_Belville said:

I suspect that folks who do not appreciate the value of StormScope technology have little real experience with an operable unit in summer weather.

I flew in Florida for years without one. Never thought I needed one.   Moved north, bought my Mooney.  It had one installed and I thought about removing it to clear up panel space.  Used it to dodge a few storms.  Thought, why didn't I have one of these in Florida?

[kortopates]

14 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

NOAA uses the Vaisala National Lightning Detection Network.  There data is proprietary, but they purport to be able to detect both cloud and cloud-to-ground strikes, and the ability to distinguish the two.  They don't make clear how, though it seems ground-based magnetic detectors of some type are involved.

Otherwise, there are other lightning detection networks that use sferics, but they use the same technique as strikefinders and cannot easily distinguish between cloud and cloud-to-ground strikes.

NOAA only makes the cloud to ground data available publicly for redistribution. The data we have access to in the cockpit is limited to cloud to ground strikes. It all stems from the public domain data NOAA provides that is redistributed by NOAA and to us in the air by Sirus XM and WSI.

It is quite interesting how Vaisala has been working on adding cloud to cloud strikes (or strokes as the scientific papers refer too).to their NLDN and although as you said, NOAA has access to this. NOAA's access is limited to internal forecasting use and NOAA agreement forbids them from sharing this data real time outside of NOAA and the military A little reading on this reveals that its actually quite difficult to accurately map cloud to cloud strikes compared to ground strikes. Vaisala reported only 50% detection efficiency in 2015 and the more public Blitzortung.org group that can't distinguish between intra-cloud and ground strikes also echos that.

So currently the real time public domain NLDN that's available to us in the cockpit remains to ground strikes only. 

see https://my.vaisala.net/en/press/news/2017/Pages/Page_2096429.aspx 

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/sib/restricted_data/restricted_data_pmb/lightning/ 

[jaylw314]

1 minute ago, kortopates said:

NOAA only makes the cloud to ground data available publicly for redistribution. The data we have access to in the cockpit is limited to cloud to ground strikes. It all stems from the public domain data NOAA provides that is redistributed by NOAA and to us in the air by Sirus XM and WSI.

It is quite interesting how Vaisala has been working on adding cloud to cloud strikes (or strokes as the scientific papers refer too).to their NLDN and although as you said, NOAA has access to this. NOAA's access is limited to internal forecasting use and NOAA agreement forbids them from sharing this data real time outside of NOAA and the military A little reading on this reveals that its actually quite difficult to accurately map cloud to cloud strikes compared to ground strikes. Vaisala reported only 50% detection efficiency in 2015 and the more public Blitzortung.org group that can't distinguish between intra-cloud and ground strikes also echos that.

So currently the real time public domain NLDN that's available to us in the cockpit remains to ground strikes only. 

see https://my.vaisala.net/en/press/news/2017/Pages/Page_2096429.aspx 

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/sib/restricted_data/restricted_data_pmb/lightning/ 

Thanks!  Vewy intwesting!  I wonder if NOAA has access or uses any of the public sferics data for additional data, then...

[kortopates]

13 hours ago, Hank said:

And even when freshly disseminated, it will be 15 minutes old, just like the rest of the weather they send out. Ever see how much a growing CB can build up in 15 minutes?

Stormscope is "right now", while ADS-, FIS-B, etc., is all "recently." In other words, ADS-B lightning strike data is next to useless.

Of course there is no ADS-B lightning strike data available yet, but as mentioned their is talk of adding it and has been for a few years.

And although a spherics device is the only true real time device I surely would not discount the 5+ min delayed XM and WSI strike data as "useless" any more than the 15 min NEXRAD data. Yes, one should know better than try to rely on for it tactical usage. But it has very valuable strategic usage to those of us on longer cross country flights. For instance, my WX-500 helps ensuring keeping a healthy distance away from any nearby storms, while my XM is showing me the big picture out several hundred miles which allows me to deviate around large disturbance areas before I ever get that close and have to make much larger course deviations. Without the XM lightning data I would have no ability to distinguish convective weather from non-convective at a distance till I got close enough to see it with my WX-500 within a reasonably accurate range (which frankly isn't that accurate at all). We really don't have the technology in our GA planes for real tactical avoidance but we do have some awesome strategic tools; at least compared to before satellite based NEXRAD and lightning data in the cockpit.

Edited February 13, 2018 by kortopates

[markejackson02]

On 2/12/2018 at 11:24 AM, Releew said:

The unit is a WX-1000.  I spoke to the folks at L3 and they don't even recommend sending it in.  Quoted a min of 3K.  Said the problem could be in the display but more likely in the processor based on the slow starts I was experiencing.

Thanks for the input.

Rick  

LOL, to get back to the original point, if you can't find a display on e-bay for less than a thousand or so, I would recommend pulling it.  My experience it took a few tries and about $3000 to get it all working.  A new WX-500 lists for 7K plus install/interface which may be a better way to go.

[Hank]

I have a WX-950 display that I bought, but the upgrade funds have been dedicated elsewhere. Let me know if you're interested, it worked when removed from the previous plane.

[Bob_Belville]

2 hours ago, TonyK said:

I flew in Florida for years without one. Never thought I needed one.   Moved north, bought my Mooney.  It had one installed and I thought about removing it to clear up panel space.  Used it to dodge a few storms.  Thought, why didn't I have one of these in Florida?

I live in NC and did a lot of business in So FL years ago. It seemed like there was always a line of CBs stretching e/w across the GA/FL state line that had to be crossed. About 50 nm (out of 600) where the StormScope became the primary Nav Aid. This was before GPS and way before on satellite weather.