Predict when lightning will strike
There have been a lot of breakthrough research done related to lightning recently. Researchers believe that they can be most effective when combined with artificial intelligence, which could lead to innovative systems for lightning prediction. It is the first time in the world that a system has relied on simple meteorological data to predict – in real time- future lightning. The system can now alert people to incidents and take preventative measures earlier.
The scientists from EPFL published a paper in the journal Climate and Atmospheric Science, led by Farhad Rahidi and Amirhossein Mostazabi earlier this year. Last forecast: Lightning predicted within the next ten to 30 minutes.
Forecasts
Lightining is one of the most unpredictable phenomena in nature. It often kills people and animals all over the world and sets houses, forests and many things on fire. It keeps planes grounded and damages power grids, wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. Lightning is an often overlooked but fascinating phenomenon. There’s not a lot of information on what causes it, and so far there’s no easy way to predict when or where one will occur.
“Existing systems are slow and complex, and require expensive external data from radar or satellites. Our method simply uses data from any weather station, hence it can cover remote areas outside the range of radars and satellites, as well as outside the range of telecommunication networks,” said Mostazabi.
The system’s forecasts are released quickly. Once it has processed the meteorological data, lightning warning signals can be issued before a storm even forms. Switzerland’s Weather Service just released a fascinating new weather prediction report that draws from AI and machine learning insights. The system bases on a machine learning algorithm trained to identify in the weather data those conditions that will lead to lightning. For its training, the algorithm was fed with ten years of data from twelve Swiss weather stations.
By using four main factors, TDAS can calculate the weather 70% of the time.
Researchers plan to use the new system as part of the European Laser Lightning Rod project. The project launched in 2017 and aims to develop techniques to protect against lightning strikes.
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Author: PC-GR
The World of Technology
