LightningMaps.org: Real-time Lightning Map

[Tobi]

Hi folks,

here is something new: http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime

This map displays all strokes of the last 60 minutes in all regions. New ones are added almost in real time! The delay is up to 5 seconds. Station owners can check the signals or turn on their buzzers, wait for some lightning signal and a few seconds later there should be a new marker in the map. The best results can be seen in Central Europe due to the high station density.

Please note that this is a very first beta version! There's still some work to do. We can not guarantee for anything!

Have fun!

[RichoAnd]

Great

Good work Tobi!

[cutty]

Outstanding!

[Dale.Reid]

Thank you. Great stuff.

Now with the Tstorm season here this is great.

[Tobi]

The best results can be seen in Central Europe due to the high station density.

I have to revert that. The most important thing is a thunderstorm with a lot of lightning strokes . Texas is currently very interesting.

There's now also an option to enable a tick sound on every stroke on the map.

[cutty]

Here's link to real-time (not lapse) video captured this afternoon, if you all want it...
Click pic or use: http://www.ourspecialnet.com/Weather/Twi.../i-gzjCJMN


Well Done, Tobi! Nothing but 5 star reviews so far!
Mike

[John.Sacrey]

Awesome work, Tobi!!!!!

[Tobi]

Now with option to display participated stations.

[Benedict.Smith]

Now with option to display participated stations.

WOW.......
Can it get much better than this
Ben.

[Dale.Reid]

Indeed, this is the next level of data presentation.

I hope all these statistics computations and display generation isn't taxing the server. Dale

[cutty]

Indeed, this is the next level of data presentation.

I hope all these statistics computations and display generation isn't taxing the server. Dale

Not a chance.

[Dale.Reid]

Tobi,
I have just discovered the stations toggle (with a little help from my friends) and as I said in the WxForum, this thing is now more addicting than a lava lamp. If you've ever seen one of those...

Thank you. I can only hope your fertile imagination can top this most recent upgrade/improvement. This is seemingly as good as it can get.
Dale

[robo]

Dale,

this thing is more addicting than watching a disk defragmentation program.

Robo

[aib]

Bug:
The map does not show when I have IPv6 enabled in my browser (Firefox 29.0.1). I only get a empty square where the map is supposed to be. If I disable IPv6 in Firefox (network.dns.disableIPv6=true) everything works. I have a working IPv6 connection and other websites using IPv6 works fine. I also tried in Internet Explorer and Chrome with the same result.


Suggestion:
You should look into replacing polling for new data with pushing new data from the server using the WebSocket API (http://apress.jensimmons.com/v5/pro-html...g/ch7.html). This should save you bandwidth usage and allow you to send each event without delay.

[Tobi]

I hope all these statistics computations and display generation isn't taxing the server. Dale

Don't worry, there's currently no access by users to the computing servers itself.

this thing is more addicting than watching a disk defragmentation program.

And the sound is almost like a Geiger tube, especially when strike rate is around or above ~100/min as currently in Europe and USA

Bug:
The map does not show when I have IPv6 enabled in my browser (Firefox 29.0.1). I only get a empty square where the map is supposed to be. If I disable IPv6 in Firefox (network.dns.disableIPv6=true) everything works. I have a working IPv6 connection and other websites using IPv6 works fine. I also tried in Internet Explorer and Chrome with the same result.

Oops. Fixed now. Had to switch to IPv6-only here to reproduce the behavior. Thanks!

Suggestion:
You should look into replacing polling for new data with pushing new data from the server using the WebSocket API (http://apress.jensimmons.com/v5/pro-html...g/ch7.html). This should save you bandwidth usage and allow you to send each event without delay.

I've already had in mind to use WebSocket, but due to limited time it's currently good old XHTMLRequest only. The server load by the real-time map is currently(!) barely noticeable.

BTW: The CPU load on the clients computers is much higher than on the server due to the animation of those circles and lines. But that's good: Due to the higher power usage, we get more global warming and therefore more thunderstorms and more warming again and so on ....

[Dale.Reid]

Tobi,
Is the circle size any indication of the estimated strike current? Maybe it is an optical illusion that when a real zapper lights up and many stations especially distant ones point to it, I get the impression that the dot is a bit bigger. May only be my mind looking at it with lots of lines pointing to it.

Also, thanks for the reassurance that looking at passing storms isn't goofing up your map and statistics generator that makes all this happen. Great idea to push as much of the display and animation off to our computers. Sort of like the SETI network a few years ago where lots of little machines scattered about used their idle cycles to analyze signals.

Dale

[Tobi]

Maybe it is an optical illusion that when a real zapper lights up and many stations especially distant ones point to it, I get the impression that the dot is a bit bigger.

It's an illusion. Calculation of current doesn't work (yet).

[weatherc]

Cool map

Will the realtime-data be available in some way so usermade maps (like Euroblitz) can access it?

// Henkka

[Tobi]

Today I've fixed a memory leak and added a fullscreen view.

Will the realtime-data be available in some way so usermade maps (like Euroblitz) can access it?

Yes, of course. But it will take some time, maybe months, because there's a lot of other stuff to do.

[weatherc]

Yes, of course. But it will take some time, maybe months, because there's a lot of other stuff to do.

Okay. Just let me know if you need any help with testing or something

// Henkka