A lightning strike(Johannes Plenio / Unsplash)This week on Science Behind the Forecast, learn how lightning is detected and tracked as LPM’s Bill Burton talks with Tawana Andrew.This transcript was edited for clarity and length.Bill Burton: It's time for us to take a look at the Science Behind t he Forecast as I'm joined by WAVE 3 meteorologist Tawana Andrew. Good morning, Tawana.Tawana Andrew: Good morning. You could say we're feeling a spark about this topic today.BB: I got a charge out of this when you told me about it because we're talking about lightning today. Enlighten us, please.TA: I love the puns this morning, by the way.We're talking about lightning, which is one of the most dangerous parts of a thunderstorm. Detecting lightning is key to ensuring outdoor safety. In terms of initially detecting lightning, we did it the old-fashioned way: you saw the lightning, you heard the thunder, you know to go inside. That's the way we used to do it. We still do it that way in many cases, which is smart.But in the late 1800s, you had an inventor, Alexander Popov, who invented the first lightning detector.It was based on a radio wave receiver. What it did was, it identified lightning by sensing the electromagnetic pulses emitted during a lightning strike. That's how they figured out how to sense it initially in the 1800’s.Now we've built off that, and we have what's called a lightning mapping array system that detects lightning using a network of GPS receivers and antennas. These systems estimate the speed and location of a lightning bolt by measuring the time it takes for a signal to be emitted by the lightning discharge and how long that takes to reach an antenna station. Most people don't know that when lightning strikes, it actually emits a radio wave, and it moves outward from where that strike happens.BB: It’s the bane of AM radio.TA: Exactly. It gets all staticy, and we don't like that, right?That radio wave, as it moves outward, is detected by antennas and sensors on the ground. Once that wave reaches at least three sensors, the exact location of the lightning strike can be calculated. You basically triangulate everything. You can figure out where that lightning is going on. That's how we detect it on the ground.But we also have a way to detect it above our heads, and that's through satellites. NOAA's geostationary operational environmental satellites.BB: That flows right off the tongue.TA: This is why meteorologists call it just call it the GOES satellites.BB: Ah, much better.TA: A lot cooler.Those GOES satellites include a geostationary lightning mapper. No, we don't have a cool acronym for that. These optically detect lightning. Since these satellites are geostationary, that means they sit over the same locations. They are consistent on keeping an eye on where lightning is going on in a particular area. You have the combination of the lightning mapping array with the satellite imagery, and that enables a three-dimensional detection of cloud-to-ground and cloud-to-cloud lightning strikes. All of that data inputted into various weather systems across the country, from the National Weather Service to your TV meteorologists, and that allows us to show you where and when a thunderstorm is producing lightning because that's very key to even seeing how severe a thunderstorm could be at a time.And fun fact for those of you who still stand around a water cooler and like to tell fun facts, a thunderstorm is considered over when no lightning strikes have been detected within the last 15 minutes. ...read more read less