More dots indicate more lightning activity, signaling a more severe storm. Tracking lightning also gives meteorologists an indication of the movement of the storm so they can predict its future location up to three hours in advance. The satellite relays information to a station on Earth. The control center processes data. Processed data is relayed back to satellite.
Thunderstorms often move quickly.
Occasionally lightning strikes dangerously out of the blue, eight to 10 miles ahead of the storm itself. Forests can't hide from lightning's raw power, and these strikes cause nearly half of all forest fires. This allows firefighters to react faster. The network lets insurance companies confirm the location of strikes in the event of property damage claims, and gives the aviation industry and military more data for safer air traffic control and refueling operations. Earle Williams, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is using the radio waves from lightning to gather data about global lightning activity.