Über-Cool Lightning Radars
16 May 2007 in Root | Comments enabled
The thunderstorm season started tonight with some mediocre thunder going on. (No, I’m sure that none of my neighbors were playing AC/DC’s Thunder 
) The whole storm that came over Vaasa/Vasa yesterday was surprisingly powerful, I at least thought. The water poured down heavily and the wind had gusts at storm strengths that I thought belonged in the autumn, not spring. 
Well, it is time to keep an eye on those lighting radars that are plentiful on the net. The good with these radars are that they are ideal for predicting when/if a thunderstorm will get near you. The bad is that they have varying data and calibrations, but that needs to be expected since they are only amateurs maintaining them. The pros (FMI, Foreca, SMHI) do not sadly allow give free access to their lightning radars, which is a bit of a shame. FMI has had their lightning radars only available for farmers and aviation needs, but last year they (thankfully) made their service available on mobile phones as well… for a smaller fee. But, in the end, the information from the free radars are not the significantly less accurate than what the meteorological institutions have to offer.
A local storm chaser group have put together a link list of Swedish and Finnish lightning radars. My two favorites are Zalama in Muurame and Stormtracker Wasa in Vaasa/Vasa. It’s worth checking out if you have concerns that lighting might destroy your home electronics or computers, or just wanna go golfing.
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