Limaps.org is the data archive of Blitzortung.org. Here you will find the positions calculated from the data sent by the detectors. We only record the results of the calculations and not the raw data sent by the detectors to the server. There is no guarantee that the source of the electromagnetic signal of a thunderstorm lightning is near the calculated position. We only guarantee the following statement for each calculated position.
Blitzortung.org is not an official authority for lightning or thunderstorm data. The data is provided only for private and entertainment purposes. The project Blitzortung.org is merely a voluntary leisure activity.
It is not allowed to use the data of Blitzortung.org for storm warning systems, for plausibility checks of overvoltage damages, or risk analysis for precautionary protection of high-quality technology, even if the data are not obtained directly from our site but from third-party websites.
The use of our lightning data is allowed only to the participants of the project or to those we explicitly have allowed it.
We are not liable for the completeness, timeliness, quality and accuracy of the information on our website. We are not responsible for damages, resulting from trusting the content of our website or its use. This also holds if our data is obtained from third-party websites.
The calculation of the impact positions is done on several servers located either in Germany or Finland. Each calculation thread works in its own container. These containers are numbered from C0 to C19. The threads contain the impact positions for a specific region. The regions are numbered from 1 to 15 and named after geographical areas. The regions numbered 6, 8 and 10 are reserved for external calculation servers.
The allocation of regions to containers is shown in the table below.
| container | region area | server location | region number |
| C00 | - | - | - |
| C01 | Europs 1 | Germany | 1 |
| C02 | Ozeania 1 | Germany | 2 |
| C03 | North America 1 | - | 3 |
| C04 | Asia 1 | Germany | 4 |
| C05 | Africa 1 | Germany | 7 |
| C06 | South America 1 | Germany | 5 |
| C07 | Japan 1 | Germany | 9 |
| C08 | - | - | - |
| C09 | - | - | - |
| C10 | North America 2 | Finland | 13 |
| C11 | - | - | - |
| C12 | - | - | - |
| C13 | - | - | - |
| C14 | - | - | - |
| C15 | - | - | - |
| C16 | World 1 | Finland | 15 |
| C17 | Japan 2 | Finland | 14 |
| C18 | Europe 2 | Finland | 11 |
| C19 | Europe 3 | Finland | 12 |
The data is available in different formats, as SQLite data files, as JSON data rows and as maps.
The SQLite data archive contains the impact data until to ende of 2023 calculated by blitzortug.org in SQLite3 data files. The file names are build as follows:
Example: The file
contains the data calculated in container 1 for region 1 (Europe 1) between January 1 and December 31, 2023 with a latitude between -90 and 90 degrees and a longitude between -180 and 180 degrees.
For more information about the entries in the data files, see the metadata table of the files.
The database contains two tables named metadata and strokes. The strokes table contains the following columns:
| column | description |
| time | timestamp in nanoseconds since midnight on January 1, 1970 |
| lat | latitude in degrees (decimal) |
| lon | longitude in degrees (decimal) |
| alt | altitude above sea level in meters |
| pol | polarity, -1 or +1 |
| mds | maximum deviation range in nanoseconds |
| scs | smallest all-covering sector in degrees (example: 210 degrees = the detectors are in a sector of 150 degrees from the impact location) |
| status | status (optional) |
Here is an example of how to filter out data entries from an sqlite3 database file.
open the database file:
SQLite version 3.37.2 2022-01-06 13:25:41
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
list the table names:
metadata strokes
read the metadata
This database contains information about possible locations of electromagnetic discharges, calculated from the jsondatabase data provided by the participants of the project Blitzortung.org..
show the preferences
echo: off
eqp: off
explain: auto
headers: off
mode: list
nullvalue: ""
output: stdout
colseparator: "|"
rowseparator: "\n"
stats: off
width:
filename: S1-R1-Y2023-M01-12-N90-S-90-W-180-E180.sqlitedatabase
output the number of entries in table strokes
12583194
set output format to csv
output selected strokes
1673898604479904941,44.950874,13.646371,0,0,6140,73,322,13
1673898604479915532,44.969227,13.6342,0,0,9739,134,431,20
1673898604479909643,44.969513,13.630484,0,0,5950,138,412,18
1674257357563815319,44.954322,13.959775,0,0,14821,198,66,13
...
quit the program
>
The JSON data archive contains the impact data calculated by blitzortug.org in text data files. The container directories contain sub-directories named by the date and time of the lightning strikes in UTC times. Each data file contains impact positions of 10 minutes. The hours are divided into 10 minute intervals. Each line of these files consists of one variable coded in "JSON" (JavaScript Object Notation) format. Older files are only available as "zgip" files.
The
Example: The file
contains the data calculated in container 1 (for region 1, Europe 1) on August 21, 2024 between 9:10.000000000 and 9.19.999999999 UTC.
Each line of the data files contains one JSON codes variable with the following members:
| name | description |
| time | timestamp in nanoseconds since midnight on January 1, 1970 |
| lat | latitude in degrees (decimal) |
| lon | longitude in degrees (decimal) |
| alt | altitude above sea level in meters |
| pol | polarity, -1 or +1 |
| mds | maximum deviation range in nanoseconds |
| mcg | smallest all-covering sector in degrees (example: 210 degrees = the detectors are in a sector of 150 degrees from the impact location) |
| status | status (optional) |
| sig | array of signals |
Each signal of the sig array has have the following members.
| name | description |
| sta | station that has received the signal |
| time | time difference to the time of the lightning strike in nanoseconds |
| lat | latitude of the detector in degree (decimal) |
| lon | longitude of the detector in degree (decimal) |
| alt | altitude of the detector above sea level in meters |
| status | status of the signal (bit 1 = polarity negative, bit 2 = polarity positive, bit 3 = signal is used for the computation) |
The map data archive contains the standard maps displayed on Blitzortung.org recorded at 5 minute intervals. The images are composed of two png files by overlaying them. The upper png file contains the lightning information, the lower png file forms the background. The following maps are available:
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| Date: |
| End Time (UTC): |
| Duration: |
Detector Database
Live Data
The last calculated impact positions from all regions together up to the current time can be accessed using the following URL. The last 100,000 entries (with raw data involved) / 1,000,000 entries (without raw data involved) are taken into account. In order to keep the transfer rate as high as possible, the data is not read from the disk, but from the main memory.
https://loginname:password@data.blitzortung.org/Data/Protected/last_strikes.php
The returned records are sorted time descending. The parameters of the script have the following meaning.
numer=x provides the last x entries (default = 100) time=t provides the latest entries after time stamp t (given as UTC Nano Epoch Seconds) west=lon provides only entries with a longitude of at least lon (default = -180) east=lon provides only entries with longitude of at most lon (default = 180) north=lat provides only entries with a latitude of at most lat (default = 90) south=lat provides only entries with a latitude of at least lat (default = -90) sig=0/1 provides entries excluding/including the information of the signals involved (default = 0)
Example: The follwing url provides the last 10 entries from the last 1000000 entries with a longitude between -10.0° and 40.0°, a latitude between 70.0° and 20.0°, and without the information about the signals involved.
https://loginname:password@data.blitzortung.org/Data/Protected/last_strikes.php?number=10&west=-10&east=40&north=70&south=20&sig=0 Each line of the data files contains one JSON codes variable. Each variable of the lightning strike files may have the following members. time = time stamp in nano seconds lat = latitude in degree (decimal) lon = longitude in degree (decimal) alt = altitude in meter pol = polarity, -1 or +1 mds = maximal deviation span in nano seconds mcg = maximal circular gap in degree (for example, 210 degree = the detectors are in a sector of 150 degree from the point of view of the impact position), optional status = status, optional sig = array of signals Each signal of the sig array may have the following members. sta = station that has received the signal time = time difference to the time of the lightning strike in nano seconds lat = latitude of the detector in degree (decimal) lon = longitude of the detector in degree (decimal) alt = altitude of the detector in meter status = status of the signal (bit 1 = polarity negative, bit 2 = polarity positive, bit 3 = signal is used for the computation)