Live lightning map with real thunder timing

How do you tell how far away lightning is?

Count the seconds between the flash and the thunder, then divide by 3 for kilometers or 5 for miles. Ten seconds means the strike was about 3.4 km away. That shortcut assumes sound travels at 343 m/s, which is only true near 20 °C in dry air.

Real sound speed ranges from roughly 325 m/s on a freezing day to 351 m/s in hot, humid air, a spread of about 8%. This site uses the Cramer (1993) equation with live conditions at both your position and the strike, so the countdown reflects the air the sound actually crosses.

Read the full guide to lightning distance

What the map shows you

Live strikes worldwide

A volunteer network of ground stations triangulates the radio pulse each discharge emits. Strikes appear 3 to 8 seconds after they occur, marked by polarity and by how many stations picked them up.

Expanding thunder wavefront

Each strike grows a ring at the true local speed of sound. The softer band around it is the position uncertainty in the detection network, worth roughly 16 seconds of arrival time. It is drawn rather than hidden because that error is bigger than anything the formula can recover.

Audibility limit

Past about 16 km, thunder normally bends upward and never reaches the ground. Those wavefronts are drawn differently, because the strike is real but you will never hear it.

Strike detail

Tap any strike for its polarity, altitude, detection delay, station count and circular gap, plus the estimated loudness in decibels at your position and the weather along the path.

Why not just count seconds?

Counting works, and it is genuinely useful. But it only tells you about lightning you already saw. The map shows strikes beyond your horizon, behind buildings and out at sea, including the ones you never saw flash.

It also handles the parts the rule of thumb ignores. Humid air carries sound faster than dry air, which surprises most people. Wind adds directly to the propagation speed, worth about 0.85 seconds over 10 km in a 10 m/s wind. Thunder also reaches you from the nearest point of the lightning channel, not from the point plotted on the ground.

How many lightning strikes hit your country?

Every strike on this map is also archived. The result is a searchable count of detected lightning for every country, state, province and US county, updated hourly.

• Lightning strikes by country, state and county
• Lightning strikes in the United States by state
• Florida lightning strikes by county
• Which countries have the most lightning?

Guides

• How far away is lightning? Count the seconds between flash and thunderCount the seconds between the flash and the thunder, then divide by 3 for kilometers or 5 for miles. See why the rule works and where it goes wrong.
• The speed of sound and thunder: what actually determines the delayThe speed of sound changes with temperature, humidity, pressure and wind. See the exact Cramer equation and how much error the simple rule of thumb introduces.
• Heat lightning: real strikes too far away to hearHeat lightning is ordinary lightning from a storm too distant for its thunder to reach you. See why the sound vanishes past 16 km and how far flashes carry.
• How lightning detection networks find a strikeLightning maps locate strikes by timing radio pulses at multiple stations. See how time-of-arrival triangulation works and how accurate the results really are.
• Lightning safety and the 30-30 ruleIf thunder follows lightning within 30 seconds, go indoors and stay there 30 minutes after the last thunder. Learn why both numbers matter.
• How to read weather radar colorsRadar colors show reflectivity in dBZ, not rainfall depth. Learn what green, yellow and red actually mean and why radar sometimes shows rain that never lands.
• How thunderstorms formThunderstorms need moisture, instability and lift. See how a storm builds through its three stages and why the mature stage produces the most lightning.
• Types of lightning and what each one meansCloud-to-ground, intracloud, sheet, heat and ball lightning. What each type is, which ones detection networks see, and which are genuinely dangerous.
• Lightning myths that get people hurtLightning does strike twice, rubber tyres will not save you, and lying flat is outdated advice. The common myths, and what the evidence actually says.
• Lightning strike survival: what happens when a person is struckAbout 90% of lightning strike victims survive. What actually injures people, why cardiac arrest is the main cause of death, and what to do immediately.
• Where lightning strikes most on EarthLake Maracaibo in Venezuela records about 233 lightning flashes per square kilometer a year. See why tropical land dominates and where Africa and the US peak.
• Which countries have the most lightning strikes?Venezuela hosts the fiercest lightning hotspot, central Africa the most relentless storms, and Brazil the biggest yearly totals. See why, with live counts.
• When lightning happens most: season and time of dayLightning peaks in summer afternoons because that is when surface heating is strongest. Why the time of day matters more than most people expect.
• The math and sources behind thunder timingEvery equation this map uses to time thunder: Cramer's speed-of-sound formula, slant range, wind advection, and the research each constant comes from.
• How lightning rods and protection systems really workA lightning rod does not repel lightning or drain the cloud. It offers a preferred attachment point and a metal path to earth. See how the rolling sphere method places one.
• Why lightning destroys electronics without hitting the houseMost lightning damage to electronics comes from strikes that never hit the building. See how induced surges get onto wiring and what surge protection actually does.
• Thundersnow: why winter lightning is quiet and what it signalsThundersnow is rare, quiet and usually means very heavy snow is falling. See why its thunder carries only 2 to 3 miles and where lake-effect storms produce it.
• Volcanic lightning: how an ash plume electrifies itselfAsh plumes generate lightning through rock fragmentation near the vent and ice higher up. See what the 2010 Eyjafjallajokull measurements showed about both mechanisms.
• How lightning starts wildfires, and why those fires get bigLightning starts about 11% of US wildfires but burns 53% of the acres. See why continuing current matters more than peak current and what a holdover fire is.
• What happens when lightning strikes an aircraftAirliners are struck about once a year each and keep flying. See how the Faraday cage, bonding and fuel tank inerting each handle a different part of the problem.
• How to photograph lightning without gambling on the shutterLightning photography is a waiting problem, not an exposure problem. Camera settings for night and day, why triggers exist, and how to stay behind cover while shooting.
• Ball lightning and the anomalies science has not closed outBall lightning, St Elmo's fire, earthquake lights and gamma-ray flashes. Which lightning anomalies are documented, which are explained, and which are neither.