2 people struck by lightning on a Colorado Springs golf course; LightningCast lead time
GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images, with/without an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density and contours of LightningCast Probability [click to play animated GIF| MP4]
2 people were hospitalized after being struck by lightning on a Colorado Springs golf course (media report) around 2140 UTC on 26 May 2023. 5-minute GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) showed thunderstorms that were increasing in coverage/intensity as they moved northeastward toward the Colorado Springs area (eventually producing 1.00-inch-diameter hail) — and Lightning Cast Probability values over Colorado Springs began to steadily increase after 1901 UTC, reaching or exceeding 50%/75%/90% at 2021 UTC/2046 UTC/2056 UTC respectively.
The occurrence of GLM Flash Extent Density pixels directly over Colorado Springs began at 2121 UTC — 25 minutes after the initial 90% LightningCast value, 35 minutes after the initial 75% LightningCast value and 60 minutes after the initial 50% LightningCast value. Decision support for outdoor events benefits from the lead time offered by the LightningCast tool.
The LightningCast webite (here) includes a ‘Lightning Meteogram’ tool for airports within the USA and Canada; the one for the Colorado Springs CO airport (KCOS) for this event is shown below for both GOES-16 CONUS data (left) and GOES-18 PACUS/Meso (right) — a GOES-18 Mesoscale sector was over Colorado during this event. LightningCast probabilities — that a GLM detection will occur within the next 60 minutes — were very large before the lightning near the airport, and tapered off before the lightning diminished.
