NZ Weather Forum

David wrote:

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:I noticed some lightning strikes from SG's recorder but no sferics picked up here

In all honesty why would would you want to listen to sferics when you can access a lightning tracker which can not only tell you an approximate distance of how far away each strike is but also the direction? Ain' it a bit ol' fashioned?

Nahhh. Sferics is much better, sorry

JohnGaul
NZTS

NZ Thunderstorm Soc wrote:Nahhh. Sferics is much better, sorry

Depends where you are - I gave up on listening for sferics about a year ago because there was some form of pulsing interference in the area that also interfered with my lightning detector circuit I built which is a bit budget and shoddy anyway. Was interesting - maybe I should set up the circuit again sometime to see if the 'band' has cleared.

3 flashes of lightning just noted wayout to the west of here. Sferics of such picked up nicely

JohnGaul
NZTS

David wrote: In all honesty why would would you want to listen to sferics when you can access a lightning tracker which can not only tell you an approximate distance of how far away each strike is but also the direction? Ain' it a bit ol' fashioned?

Beacause they sound so good!

What frequency do you listen on? - and how far away can you hear the lightning from?

Lightning more to the NW of here now,possibly over the Westport region????

JohnGaul
NZTS

What frequency do you listen on? - and how far away can you hear the lightning from?

I set it to the left side of the dial, past national radio on 756 M (AK). You will pick up lightning within about 50km, comes in better within 30km, comes in strongly within 10km of storm.

Lightning trackers in NZ are not that great. The Boltek is good in that it detects everything and gives the bearing, but can't place it accurately. Full service Met Service tracker costs money and doesn't detect everything. In USA lightning trackers are not great either, unless you are prepared to pay.

Oh I see. I'm thinking about all this that maybe it is best to use lightning tracker to know what direction storms are moving and then use radio & spherics to determine whether the activity is approaching or not. But I generally think that lightning tracker is fine as it gets more accurate at placing strikes correctly when they are closer, which is when it really counts anyway.

I used to tune my radio to about where 2NA was there was lots of spherics,about 15 something kHz or something thats when there was nothing there apart from 1XI,

Lightning finished now although one or 2 sfericasisms are coming my way. I usually tune to the higher part of the AM band but of course there is a lot of interference especially at night-time, sadly
JohnGaul
NZTS

Im nomrALLY out side with am radio going when a storm is approaching.
Esp if its nearing quite close, as the closer the storm the more serferics you will get

I find you can sometimes figure out by listening to saferics what type of strike it is.
Sometimes if there is a long two cracks on the radio then I imagine it as a CG, interesting huh .
We sure are stuck in this strong NW flow at the moment with some more strong winds this morning.
Batten down the hatches and put the horses in the barn ( as Jim would say ), because its going to blow this evening with some quite severe gusts possible inland.
This should be followed by a period of rain from the west, with perhaps some heavy falls further inland.
I dont think thunderstorms will cross the alps with the rain, but then again never rule out a good NWer.
Cheers
Jason.