It seems a certain paradox that the more developed the economy, the greater vulnerability to the phenomena, such as lightning. 50 years ago a lightning strike would set fire to a house damage a transformer, etc. The losses incurred, as result of e.g. power failure would not be substantial. This has changed entirely following ubiquitous introduc-tion of electricity and computers. The overvoltage caused by a lightning strike may disturb life in huge metropolitan areas and halt factories.
Thunderstorms continue to pose threat for aviation and the energy sector.
The failures caused by a lightning result not only in sizeable economic losses, but also endanger human life. Meteorological stations record thunderstorms occurring in their vicinity. In Poland, the average distance between meteorological stations is 70 kilometres, whereas the average size of a single thunderstorm cloud spans between a few and over 10 kilometres. Hence the obvious inability of the surface observation system to detect majority of thunderstorms. Between 1985 and 1989 the incidental attempts were made to locate the thunderstorms using radio noise direction finding equipment.