Collection and use of lightning strike data in the western U.S. during summer 1983

"Since 1977, the Bureau of Land Management (BLH) has operated an Automatic Lightning Detection system (ALDS) in the western United Stated. The primary use of the system has been by the BLM and other land management agencies for the detection of lightning caused wildfires. The system is designed to detect cloud-to-ground strikes only. A secondary use has been for thunderstorm forecasting by National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters. The references document some early NWS efforts to, use the ALDS data. However, these efforts were hampered by the fact that the lightning strike information, in general, has not been made available to forecasters in the form of real-time displays that could be compared to other meteorological data"--Introduction. Glenn E. Rasch and Mark Mathewson. Includes bibliographical references. 1984 NWS (National Weather Service) WR (Western Region) Library Public Domain 1931