How pilots avoid thunderstorms--and what happens when they can't Most commercial planes get struck by lightning a couple times a year. Despite the fears of nervous fliers, radar, routing, and teamwork keep planes safe during storms. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. In the 2023 movie starring Gerard Butler, a commercial aircraft is caught in a terrible storm. The plane shakes and the lights go out.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. A US astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) recently caught a glimpse of one of Earth's least understood atmospheric phenomena. While orbiting in the early hours of July 3, Nichole "Vapor" Ayers snapped a photo of a transient luminous event, as she passed over North America. Better known as a sprite, these atmospheric events are common after a lightning strike. Wow," Ayers posted to social media later that day along with the stunning picture.

Telecom giant NTT has developed what it describes as the world's first "flying lightning rod," or drones that will trigger lightning and redirect it safely to the ground to prevent it from striking people or vital infrastructure. In multiple field tests in the mountainous areas of Hamada, Shimane Prefecture, between December and January, the company flew a drone equipped with a proprietary lightning-resistant cage to an approaching thundercloud when it noted the electric field intensity at ground level had increased, signaling an impending lightning strike. The drone, which was connected to the ground with a wire, triggered a lightning strike -- marking the first time such a feat has been achieved globally, according to NTT -- with the 2,000 volts of electric current flowing through the wire.

A definition of what counts as an explanation of mathematical statement, and when one explanation is better than another, is given. Since all mathematical facts must be true in all causal models, and hence known by an agent, mathematical facts cannot be part of an explanation (under the standard notion of explanation). This problem is solved using impossible possible worlds.

In the wake of storms of the near future, swarms of drones could replace helicopters and planes, providing emergency crews with more rapid and accurate data on the coming threats of lightning-sparked bushfires or flash floods heading for homes. Authorities now rely on satellites, which require clear weather during daytime and may only provide resolution down to 10 metres. Alternatively, pilots of aircraft may burn as much as $3,400 worth of fuel an hour and often can't fly for safety reasons. Enter firms such as Sydney-based Carbonix, a developer that started out designing America's Cup racing yachts before changing tack to make drones capable of flying eight hours or longer with resolution fine enough to read words on a piece of paper. Dario Valenza, chief technology officer and founder of Carbonix, says thermal cameras on the drones could quickly verify fires started by lightning in remote regions, helping to direct fire crews to the scene "with only a few per cent of the fuel" used by conventional aircraft that might have their operations curtailed by weather.

Drought, extreme temperatures and thousands of lightning bolts each day led to the ignition of wildfires across Alaska's interior. More than 2.4 million acres have burned this year by wildfires, which is double the acreage that is typically scorched at this point in the state's wildfire season. The Alaska wildfire season typically begins in late May and ends in late July, and the National Park Services states that, on average, one million acres burn statewide each year. The blazes are being ignited by lightning strikes plaguing the state - nearly 25,000 bolts were detected between June 28 and July 4 and more than 10,000 have hit since then. There are only about 1,000 firefighters in the interior of the state who are tirelessly working around the clock to put out more than 225 fires, which are forcing hundreds of residents from their homes.

The enormous underwater volcano off Tonga last month not only caused record plumes of ash into the air, but also led to one of the largest volcanic lightning events ever seen. According to GLD360, the ground-based global lightning detection network owned and operated by Vaisala, the eruption triggered nearly 590,000 lighting strikes that were'unlike anything on record.' The lightning almost engulfed the surrounding islands in the Tonga archipelago, according to Chis Vagasky, a meteorologist at Vaisala. 'I can't imagine what the people on the islands would have been going through, with a huge ash cloud overhead, a tsunami flooding everything they own, and cloud-to-ground lightning coming down around them,' he said. 'It must have felt apocalyptic.' Ash sent spewing into the air from the massive underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga was photographed by International Space Station astronauts.

Researchers in Switzerland have figured out how to use AI to predict when and where lightning will strike. Researchers from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne used standard meteorological data and machine learning to build a simple system that can predict lightning strike to the nearest 10 to 30 minutes inside a radius of about 18.6 miles, according to an account in Popular Mechanics. "We have used machine learning techniques to successfully hindcast nearby and distant lightning hazards by looking at single-site observations of meteorological parameters," wrote the authors in a new paper published recently in the journal Climate and Atmospheric Science. The researchers used data about past lightning strikes to build an algorithm that can make predictions about new lightning strikes, in a process called hindcasting, as opposed for forecasting. Estimates based on past events are fed into a model to see how well the output matches known results.

Despite that old saying, lightning can--and often does--strike the same area twice. It's detrimental to farmers as lightning causes fires that can destroy millions of dollars' worth of crops. And, it kills more people each year than tornadoes or hurricanes. But right now, our only real warning system is storm clouds. Simply put: we have difficulty predicting exactly when these giant electrical charges will strike.

Weather prediction has gotten substantially better over the course of the past decade, with five-day forecasts now being about 90% accurate. However, one aspect of weather that has long eluded attempts to predict it is lightning. Because lightning is so unpredictable, it's very difficult to minimize the damage it can do to human lives, property, and nature. Thanks to the work of a research team from the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) School of Engineering, lightning strikes may be much more predictable in the near future. As reported by SciTechDaily, a team of researchers from EPFL' s School of Engineering – Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory, recently created an AI program capable of accurately predicting a lightning strike within a period of 10 to 30 minutes away and over a 30-kilometer radius.