Weather API - Lightning Turbine Risk

URL Path

https://data.api.xweather.com/lightning/turbinerisk/

Data Coverage

Global

Update Interval

N/A

Time Range

N/A

The Lightning Turbine Risk endpoint estimates the expected frequency of lightning strikes to wind turbines using peer-reviewed research and long-term lightning climatology. The calculation is based on the methodology described in the paper A Multiyear CONUS-Wide Analysis of Lightning Strikes to Wind Turbines by Ryan Said, Eric Grimit, and Martin Murphy. The endpoint converts local lightning activity into an estimated number of lightning strikes per turbine per year.

Wind turbines are particularly susceptible to lightning because of their height and exposure within the atmospheric electric field during storms. Lightning strikes can result in blade damage, control system failures, and downtime, making lightning risk an important factor for turbine design, insurance underwriting, and operational planning. This endpoint provides a simplified model that translates local lightning density into an expected annual strike frequency for a turbine at a specific location and height.

The model uses local cloud-to-ground lightning stroke density and turbine tip height to estimate two primary lightning mechanisms that affect wind turbines:

Cloud-to-Ground (CG) strikes

Traditional downward lightning strokes originating from thunderstorms that terminate on the turbine.
Triggered Upward Lightning (TUL)

Upward leaders initiated from the turbine structure in response to strong electric fields during thunderstorms.
Self-Initiated Upward Lightning (SIUL)
Upward lightning that originates from the turbine without a preceding nearby lightning stroke. These events can occur when strong electric fields develop around tall structures during certain storm environments, particularly in cold-season storms.

The formulas from the referenced research allow estimation of CG and TUL strike rates using local lightning density and turbine height. However, SIUL is not directly modeled in the paper, as it depends on additional atmospheric and storm-structure conditions that are not captured by lightning density alone. Additional guidance from the Science team will be required before SIUL can be estimated within this endpoint.

Together, the CG and TUL components provide an estimate of the expected number of lightning strikes per turbine per year. This value represents a long-term statistical exposure metric, rather than a deterministic forecast of lightning events.

The endpoint is intended to support use cases such as renewable energy asset risk assessment, wind farm planning, engineering analysis, and insurance underwriting. It allows clients to pass a turbine tip height as a query parameter so the strike rate can be calculated dynamically for different turbine configurations.

Requests

Every request to the endpoint must include one of the supported actions in the url.

https://data.api.xweather.com/lightning/turbinerisk/{action}?client_id={client_id}&client_secret={client_secret}&{params}

Supported Actions

The following actions are supported with the /lightning/turbinerisk endpoint:

Action	Description
:id	Type: stringTypically used for passing a geographical location name or identifier such as city name, lat/long, or even US and Canadian postal codes. Learn more.

Response

The following is an example of what each object in the response will consist of. Depending on your requested action, the response may contain multiple instances of this object within an array.

Properties

id (string)

dataSource (string)

loc (object)

The location of the record.

loc.lat (number)

The latitude coordinate of the record.

loc.long (number)

The place or nearest place to the record.

place (object)

Object containing information about the place or nearest place to the record.

place.name (string)

The place or nearest place to the record.

place.state (string)

The state abbreviation in which the response is located. This may be null or an empty string depending on the country.

place.country (string)

The 2 letter ISO-3166 country abbreviation in which the response is located.

resolutionM (number)

Spatial resolution of the underlying lightning dataset in meters, defining the grid cell size used for risk calculations.

risk (object)

Estimated annual lightning strike risk for a wind turbine at the specified location and height, based on local lightning climatology and peer-reviewed modeling.

risk.cg (number)

Expected annual cloud-to-ground lightning strike frequency per turbine.

risk.tul (number)

Expected annual triggered upward lightning (TUL) strike frequency per turbine, estimated from turbine height and local storm electric field conditions.

profile (object)

Object containing information about the location or event.

profile.tz (string)

Timezone name of the location, such as America/New_York.

response.json

{
  "success": true,
  "error": null,
  "response": [
    {
      "id": "799tmmm",
      "dataSource": "xweather",
      "loc": {
        "lat": 44.92496,
        "long": -93.46273
      },
      "place": {
        "name": "hopkins",
        "state": "mn",
        "country": "us"
      },
      "resolutionM": 2500,
      "risk": {
        "cg": 0.74638940011691,
        "tul": 0.15953400194011
      },
      "profile": {
        "tz": "America/Chicago"
      }
    }
  ]
}