Contact: Barry Reichenbaugh FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
9/30/96
A Tucson, Ariz., company has been awarded a contract to provide lightning data to the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several other federal agencies.
The one-year contract awarded today to Global Atmospherics Inc. (GAI) includes four one-year renewal options for a maximum potential value of $9.8 million among NOAA, NASA, the Defense Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Interior Department. NOAA's maximum portion of the contract could total $3.4 million.
GAI gathers lightning data in real time using land-based sensors which detect atmospheric electrical currents caused by lightning, and pinpoints strike locations from hundreds of miles away. The lightning data is provided by GAI to NOAA's National Weather Service and about 500 other government user sites through satellite links and telephone lines.
"Lightning data will give our forecasters better insight into the evolution of thunderstorms -- and that will translate to improved local forecasts of severe storms," said Susan Zevin, deputy director of operations for the National Weather Service. "While we can't predict lighting, better information about the frequency and precise location of lightning strikes can, for example, help dispatchers give better directions to fighters of wildfires, and help pilots planning flight paths."
The U.S. averages more than 100,000 thunderstorms a year, producing about 20 million cloud-to-ground lightning flashes annually. In 1995, lightning killed 76 people and injured 422 in the United States.
The National Weather Service combines lightning data with information from Doppler weather radars, geostationary operational environmental satellites and other sources of weather data to generate animated graphic images of lightning activity throughout the United States and its coastal areas.