Lightning Location Information System

A Lightning Location Information System (LLIS) has recently been developed and put into operation in Hong Kong. With the support of the meteorological authorities in neighbouring areas, two of the five lightning sensing stations were established in Sanshui of Guangdong and Taipa of Macao. This enables the area of coverage of the system to encompass the entire Pearl River Delta, including the whole of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), hence greatly facilitating lightning detection and protection in the region.

To cater for the interest of aviation users, a specialized software application has been launched on the Observatory's Aviation Meteorological Information Dissemination System (AMIDS). Aviation users are now able to obtain first-hand lightning information around the airport through the on-line system. The figure below shows an intense lightning event detected by the system earlier this year which subsequently affected the HKIA on 5 May 2005. Different colours are used to indicate different timing of lightning strokes detected, through which the movement of the lightning activities could be envisaged.

Lightning location information on the AMIDS