Foster, Matthew

Fuell, Kevin K.

Gravelle, Chad M.

Leroy, Anita

McGrath, Kevin M.

Stano, Geoffrey T.

NASA Technical Reports Server

vAn Early Operational Assessment of the Geostationary 
Lightning Mapper (GLM) 1.22
Geoffrey T. Stano1,2, Kevin K. Fuell1,3, Anita LeRoy1,3, Kevin M. McGrath1,4
Chad M. Gravelle5 and Matthew Foster5, 5NOAA Operations Proving Ground, Kansas City, Missouri, United States
1NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT), 2ENSCO, Inc., 3University of Alabama in Huntsville, and 4ESSCA
Huntsville, Alabama, United States
Background
Initial Results and Examples
Future Work
1 min GLM FED (remapped to 2 km) with ABI 
10.3 µm IR (left) and radar reflectivity (right).
More lightning indicates 
stronger updrafts
Spatial 
extent
Gap in storms• Initial GLM product display completed in
Spring 2018
• Initial evaluation by forecasters who
attended the Hazardous Weather Testbed
• Focus here on forecasters at their local
offices with the Operations Proving Ground
• Goals:
• Assess GLM in an operational setting
• Identify training cases
• Identify gaps in early training
• Participants:
• ~24 offices and aviation sites
• Timeframe: Officially, June 25 – July 6
• Informally through July and August
• Training:
• Front/back page “quick guides”
• Webinar presentation
• Product: (right)
• Flash Extent Density (FED)
• # of flashes in each grid box
(Above) 28 location of all respondents.  Red – local 
office; Orange – aviation support office.
3 – 45.7%
1 – 5.7% 2 – 2.9%
4 – 17.1%
5 – 28.6%
(Above) End user rating of GLM’s usefulness from 1 
(Not Useful) to 5 (Very Useful) from all feedback.
(Left) Storms approaching airport (9 and
18 km – yellow rings) with GLM FED and
NLDN cloud-to-ground points at 2321
UTC. GLM’s greatest impact was later at
0059 UTC. GLM simply and clearly
showed lightning extending westward
over the airport. Provided confidence for
forecasters to maintain an airport
weather warning.
(Left) GLM detects a large flash
(A – dashed oval) that appears
to discharge into clear air (B).
The spatial extent is likely too
big as light is being emitted
from the side of the storm and
off surrounding clouds to
create a “large” flash.
0059 UTC
2321 UTC
A B
91% of 
responses 
found GLM to 
be ‘Somewhat 
Useful’ or better
• Training to address issues raised in assessment
• “Clear air discharges” and low GLM counts in
some supercells
• Evaluate products beyond Flash Extent Density
• Average Flash Area and Total Optical Energy
(center)
• Applications Library of operational cases (right)
(Above) Flash Extent Density (A), Average Flash 
Area (B), Total Optical Energy (C), and radar (D).
A
C
B
D
Number of 
flashes per 
grid box
Measures 
light reaching 
GLM (fJ)
Average 
area (km2) 
of all flashes 
in grid box
Flash Extent 
Density
Average 
Flash Area
Total Optical 
Energy
Radar 
Reflectivity
(Above) Intro to the airport weather warning 
applications library case. (QR links to module)
2354 UTC
2330 UTC
2303 UTC
A
B
C
5 min FED
(Left) Previously severe
storms approaching the Gulf
Coast, but GLM noted
weakening at 2303 UTC (A).
Forecasters provided alerts
versus warnings.
By 2330 (B) storms began to re-intensify. Forecasters began
shift to issuing severe weather warnings. The line continued to
intensify through 2354 (C) leading to additional warnings.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20180006735 2019-08-31T18:59:29+00:00Z


An Early Operational Assessment of the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM)

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