Two U.S. satellites watch North and South America and the western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Oceans. From this vantage point, a lightning sensor could watch storms for hours and capture what forecasters think they are missing now. Satellite infrared and visible cameras can only see the tops of clouds. This also implies that more energy is present to push the clouds that high. We are more concerned with what happens under those towering clouds when the engine can't push the rain and hail any higher and it all collapses.
Scientists have evidence that the cloud tops continue to grow even after the rain has fallen out.
This gives a false impression that the storm is still building when, in fact, it's collapsed down below. A lightning mapping sensor, though, could track the lightning in a storm as it built. When the lightning stops, forecasters would know that the system was collapsing and that conditions on the ground will be severe in a matter of minutes. Thus, a Lightning Mapping Sensor would complement infrared imagers in understanding what a storm is doing now, and what it is likely to do in the next few minutes. Back to the Lighting Imaging Sensor story.