Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Station, FL, where the Air Force conducts space launches, are in an area of frequent lightning strikes, which is main obstacle in meeting launch goals. The 45th Weather Squadron (45th WS) ensures that any weather safety requirements are met during pre-launch and actual space launch. Using only summer months from three years’ worth of lightning detection and ranging (LDAR) and electric field mill (EFM) data from KSC, several feedforward neural networks are constructed. Separate models are built for each EFM and trained by adjusting parameters to forecast lightning 30 minutes out in the surrounding area of each field mill
