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Full catalog/lisvhrfc
lisvhrfc·v1·dataset

Where lightning strikes most, mapped worldwide (very fine grid)

LIS 0.1 DEGREE VERY HIGH RESOLUTION GRIDDED LIGHTNING FULL CLIMATOLOGY (VHRFC) V1
atmosphere NASA GHRC_DAAC Level 3 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Long-term maps of where lightning strikes most often across the tropics and subtropics, on a very fine grid. They include average flash rates plus how those rates change over the day and year.

How it's made. Compiled from 16 years of lightning detections (1998-2013) by the Lightning Imaging Sensor on the TRMM satellite, gridded and smoothed to highlight reliable patterns.

How & where you'd use it. Used to study where and when lightning occurs, supporting severe-storm detection and research into how lightning interacts with the atmosphere.

What's measured

Atmosphere › Weather Events › LightningAtmosphere › Atmospheric Electricity › Lightning

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1998-01-01 → 2013-12-31
  • Measured byTRMM (LIS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -38, 180, 38
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

The LIS 0.1 Degree Very High Resolution Gridded Lightning Full Climatology (VHRFC) dataset consists of gridded full climatologies of total lightning flash rates seen by the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) from January 1, 1998 through December 31, 2013. LIS is an instrument on the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission satellite (TRMM) used to detect the distribution and variability of total lightning occurring in the Earth's tropical and subtropical regions. This information can be used for severe storm detection and analysis, and also for lightning-atmosphere interaction studies. The gridded climatologies include annual mean flash rate, mean diurnal cycle of flash rate with 24 hour resolution, and mean annual cycle of flash rate with daily, monthly, or seasonal resolution. All datasets are in 0.1 degree spatial resolution. The mean annual cycle of flash rate datasets (i.e., daily, monthly or seasonal) have both 49-day and 1 degree boxcar moving averages to remove diurnal cycle and smooth regions with low flash rate, making the results more robust.

Get the data

lisvhrfc_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="lisvhrfc",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from GHRC_DAAC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.