Lightning information service accurate to 100 meters
The Siemens Lightning Information Service (BLIDS) registered around 66,000 ground lightning strikes in Switzerland from the beginning of the year to the beginning of August 2017. With 12.26 lightning bolts per km², the greatest density was in the Ticino locality of Semione. In German-speaking Switzerland, the highest value of 7.79 flashes per km² was recorded in the village of Schwende, located in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden.
The Lightning Information Service (BLIDS) from Siemens uses around 160 connected measuring stations in Europe to record lightning and manages the measuring network in Switzerland, Germany, the UK, Benelux, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Thanks to MindSphere, Siemens' cloud-based, open operating system for the Internet of Things (IoT), lightning data is also available to customers on PCs and mobile devices.
Highest lightning density
The most lightning strikes from January 1 to and including August 1, 2017, in terms of area size, occurred in Semione. The BLIDS system registered 12.26 lightning strikes per km² here. The most lightning-rich locality in German-speaking Switzerland is Schwende in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden with 7.79 lightning bolts per km². In more than 200 Swiss localities, however, no lightning strikes were registered at all.
Looking at the absolute numbers at the cantonal level, the canton of Graubünden recorded the most strikes with 9360 ground lightning strikes, followed by the canton of Ticino (9322) and the canton of Bern (9105). In the canton of Basel-Stadt, there were only 34 lightning strikes in the same period. For comparison: In the Ticino town of Blenio alone, there were 889 lightning strikes in seven months, in Schwende 446.
Determination accurate to 100 meters
The high accuracy of BLIDS is based on the Time-of-Arrival (TOA) principle. The lightning location is calculated from the difference in the times recorded in the receivers. "Whereas it used to take up to 30 seconds for information about a lightning strike to be retrievable in the system, today it takes only ten," explains Stephan Thern, head of the lightning information service at Siemens. "Today, we can pinpoint about half of the lightning strikes to better than 100 meters."
In addition to precise localization, this measurement and calculation method also makes it possible to detect polarity and current strength as well as partial flashes within an overall flash. The more precise and faster the data, the greater the protection for people, industrial plants and infrastructure. BLIDS is used by weather services, insurance companies, and industrial and power companies, among others.
How the BLIDS system works
Every lightning bolt emits an electromagnetic signal, or electromagnetic waves. This information is registered with antennas and analyzed at Siemens' BLIDS center in Karlsruhe. The antennas are designed in such a way that they can detect from which direction the signal is coming. In combination with the information from other antennas, it is possible to determine the point of impact. The course of a thunderstorm can now be shown without gaps by the lightning information service.
With the free BLIDS spy, interested parties can register under www.blids.de quickly and up-to-date information also about lightning strikes in Switzerland.
