ISS Lightning Imaging Sensor Data for Tropical Storm Analysis

Lightning Imaging Sensor data from the International Space Station provides quality-controlled observations of total lightning distribution in Earth's tropical and subtropical regions. The instrument operates with high detection efficiency during both day and night, supporting studies of severe storms and lightning-atmosphere interactions. Data is managed by the GHRC DAAC and is available in HDF-4 and netCDF-4 formats with browse images.

Use Cases

• Severe storm detection and analysis using geospatial lightning event data.
• Studying lightning-atmosphere interactions through time-series observations.
• Mapping the distribution and variability of total lightning in tropical regions.
• Validating ground-based lightning detection networks with space-based sensor data.

Strengths

• Data is quality-controlled science data, indicating a processed and validated product.
• Instrument provides high detection efficiency for lightning during both day and night.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals importance and curation.

Limitations

• No column names, row counts, or dataset size information are provided by any source.
• Conflicting last updated dates exist: one source shows 2026-03-12, another shows 2023-11 16.

Provenance

Source

GHRC DAAC (Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center).

Collection Method

Collected by the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) instrument mounted on the International Space Station.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:39:16.227288

Geography

Earth's tropical and subtropical regions.