NAMMA Lightning Stroke Data for African Monsoon Analysis

August 2006 data from the NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses campaign contains lightning stroke observations for the African coast and Cape Verde Islands. The dataset includes latitude, longitude, accuracy, and weighting for flashes, with time determined by Arrival Time Difference from multiple UK Meteorological Office outstations. It was generated to characterize African Easterly Waves and Mesoscale Convective Systems and their impacts on regional water and energy budgets.

Use Cases

• Analyzing spatial distribution of lightning strokes along the African coast using latitude and longitude columns.
• Studying the temporal evolution of convective systems via time stamps determined by Arrival Time Difference.
• Assessing data quality and detection confidence for lightning flashes using the accuracy and weighting features.
• Correlating lightning activity with the structure of African Easterly Waves during the 2006 monsoon season.
• Validating satellite or model-based lightning detection algorithms with ground-based ATD network observations.

Strengths

• Data originates from a focused NASA field campaign with a defined scientific mission for the 2006 African monsoon.
• Includes specific quality metrics for each flash, such as accuracy and weighting parameters.
• Provides geospatially and temporally resolved observations for a key climate region.

Limitations

• Exact row count, file size, and complete column list are not provided by any source.
• Conflicting last update dates exist: one source states 2026-03-13, another states 2006-09 -20.
• License information is inconsistent, listed as 'other-license-specified' and 'None' across platforms.

Provenance

Source

UK Meteorological Office, generated for NASA NAMMA campaign, hosted by GHRC_DAAC.

Collection Method

Collected via multiple ground-based outstations using Arrival Time Difference technique.

Time Range

August 2006

Freshness

2026-03-13 00:00:44.351315

Geography

African Coast, Cape Verde Islands, and continental western Africa.