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We know when lightning strikes

Improve your operational resilience and protect your personnel with real-time lightning data from the world’s leading lightning detection network.

Lightning safety: Essential resources for businesses

Lightning is a serious safety hazard that can cause injuries or even death. Establishing clear safety protocols helps keep your employees safe during thunderstorms. Discover essential strategies for protecting your personnel and creating a safer, more resilient workplace in our featured articles from Lightning Safety Awareness Week.

Featured content

Lightning safety begins with lightning detection

Listening for thunder is an incredibly impractical and unsafe way of deciding when to cease work and bring workers indoors. Fortunately, there is a better way to protect your people and operations from lightning.

How advances in lightning detection improve safety

Lightning detection networks have come a long way since the invention of the first lightning detector in the 1890s. Learn how businesses can harness this technology to protect their personnel.

How to optimize lightning safety and operational continuity

Every business must balance the needs of safety and continuity. But what’s right for one industry might not be right for another. In this post, we look at the choices you can make to find the best balance for your business.

The unexpected lightning risks facing wildland firefighters

Lightning is responsible for 56% of the total areas burned by wildfire in the lower 48 United States. Ash plumes from large fires can trigger further lightning, putting firefighters at greater risk and starting new fires.

What is lightning density and how does it help us manage lightning risk?

See why lightning density data is a valuable resource for risk assessment, site selection, and operational planning. We'll also show you how to access high-quality lightning density maps for any location on Earth—for free!

Lightning can (and does!) strike the same place twice

The saying that lightning never strikes twice is woefully incorrect. In this post, we look at lightning activity around a 609-meter-tall radio tower in Oklahoma, which was struck five times in one hour on June 2, 2024.

Prepare for lightning season with Xweather Protect

Thunderstorms are more frequent and intense in the summer. See how you can protect your personnel while minimizing operational downtime in this recorded demo of the Xweather Protect severe weather alerting solution.

  • How to set up real-time lightning alerts for your locations

  • How to get ahead of danger with lightning forecast alerts

  • Examples of alert configurations for different industries

Lightning risks for the wind energy industry

Watch this on-demand webinar to see new insights from our analysis of lightning activity around 75,000 wind turbines in more than 1,500 U.S. wind farms in 2023.

  • How often does lightning strike wind turbines?

  • Where are wind farms most at risk from lightning?

  • How can the wind energy industry manage lightning risk?

The global lightning detection leader

We detect the precise time and location of over 2 billion lightning events every year.

No one captures more lightning data

We detect and report more than two billion lightning events every year, all within seconds of the flash. Our global detection network provides reliable real-time lightning data with unsurpassed location accuracy across land and sea, even in the most remote areas beyond the range of radars and satellites.

Global coverage with single-source access

We provide single-source access to standardized global thunderstorm and lightning data 24 hours a day with 99.99% uptime without the need to purchase or maintain additional equipment or systems. Our superior lightning detection networks are accurate to within 100 meters in the U.S. and 1 km globally.

The industry's most-trusted lightning data

With over 40 years of lightning detection experience, no other company can match Vaisala for quality, accuracy, and coverage. Vaisala is the primary source of lightning data for the U.S. Armed Forces, National Weather Service, Federal Aviation Administration, and many international commercial organizations.

Severe weather monitoring and lightning alerts

Xweather Protect delivers an all-in-one solution for weather risk management, real-time storm monitoring, and automated lightning alerts to protect your people, property, and assets in every location worldwide. With real-time alerts, self-managed assets, and flexible notification settings, Xweather Protect ensures you get the right alerts to the right people at the right time.

Global lightning data at your fingertips

The Xweather API delivers the world's most accurate and reliable lightning data wherever and whenever you need it. Get your lightning data directly from the source with easy integration, advanced geospatial capabilities, and industry-leading support. From historical lightning to real-time strike detection and forecasting, our lightning API endpoints are ready to power your weather-sensitive applications and solutions today.

Annual lightning report

Lightning triggers wildfires, disrupts power, impacts businesses, and is a significant hazard to life and property. The 2023 Vaisala Xweather annual lightning report examines the risk of lightning for the wind energy sector with a first-of-its-kind analysis that reveals the most lightning-prone wind farms in the United States. In another new analysis, we present the top 20 metropolitan areas in the United States where thunderstorms are most likely to disrupt daily life.

Your questions answered

Whatever your lightning data needs, we're here to help. Get in touch today, and let us put our expertise to work for you.

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