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Or, Why Version 4.7 of Lightning/2000 Goes Beyond the Status Quo Until version 4.6 of Lightning/2000, the range of lightning was always determined by examining groups of flashes and performing complex statistical analyses. Though this technique has been greatly refined over the years, there was always the possibility that mother nature could throw us a curve ball and cause us to come up with a less-than-accurate range. Now for the first time, we can say with certainty that some individual flashes of lightning have occurred nearby, without resorting to an analysis that can sometimes be prone to inaccuracies. This is a major breakthrough in technology, and (to the best of our knowledge) is a technology not present in any other personal lightning detection system. The older statistical technique for determining when a storm is nearby has been retained for the time being when using the LD-250. This is because the new "nearby flash" technique works better the when more strokes are detected. Since the LD-250 inherently will detect fewer strokes than the StormTracker card, the new technique is a bit more uncertain when using the LD-250. When using the StormTracker card, we now depend solely on the new technique to determine when a storm is nearby. What this means for you is that not only will you receive timely and accurate warnings when a storm is approaching your location, but the incidence of false alarms (an artifact of the older statistical technique) will be greatly reduced. Lightning/2000 and the Boltek hardware are now the most accurate low-priced lightning detection system available. In fact, we are approaching the kind of warnings that were previously available only by subscribing to expensive lightning detection network data. Back on May 20, 2008, while eating lunch, I heard the telltale sound of a nearby flash alarm from the detector. Thinking that there were no storms in the area, I resigned myself to a failure of the new technique. After pulling up the local radar image and seeing nothing, I was a little depressed! I walked outside and looked in the direction that the supposed nearby flash was detected, and did see a dark cloud in the correct direction. Imagine my surprise and joy when the weather radio sounded a severe thunderstorm warning -- 10 minutes after Lightning/2000 ascertained that a storm was forming nearby! While we can't guarantee -- yet -- that the first warning of every nearby storm will come from Lightning/2000, we can promise that you will not find a more capable personal lightning detection system than Lightning/2000. Mark Mears President Aninoquisi August 24, 2008
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