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Lightning Data

 

Lightning data are received at NCEP from Vaisala through the TNC, TNC2, and NOAAPORT feeds from the Telecommunications Operations Center. The data consist of both short-range(NLDN-National Lightning Detection Network) and long-range(LLDN-Long-range Lightning Detection Network) lightning data. Under an agreement between NOAA and Vaisala, both the data and NCEP lightning decoders are restricted to remain within NOAA. These data, along with the NCEP decoders, may not be redistributed at any time to entities outside of NOAA, nor to any other U.S government agency, any educational institution or research group, any foreign agency, or anyone in the general public.

 

 

The short-range lightning data are stored in the NCEP database as BUFR types/subtypes b007/xx001 and the long-range lightning data are stored as b007/xx002 and are being evaluated for assimilation into NCEP models and for verification purposes.

The restriction(s):

  • Lightning data is restricted in that it cannot be made available to anyone outside of NOAA.

Obligations of users:

  • Users of this data, including any code or decoder associated with it, may not redistribute it at any time to any U.S. government agency outside of NOAA, nor to any educational institution, research group, foreign government agency, or the general public. If a user is redistibuting this data within NOAA, then before doing so, the user must complete the "inform and acknowledge" procedure with the intended recipient as described on the previous page. A template is provided for this purpose which may be cut-and-pasted into an e-mail from the user to the intended recipient. Once the reply acknowledgement is received from the recipient, the user should then forward a copy of this acknowledgement to ncep.nco.ccsdata@noaa.gov before making the redistribution.

Page last modified: 18 January 2023.