Granted Patent B2

US 8,600,678 · App. 12/961,090 · Granted Dec 3, 2013

Abstract

Claims (31)

1. A computer-implemented method of presenting lightning strike information, stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, comprising:

(a) receiving lightning strike data including lightning strike location data from a source thereof at a computer system;

(b) deriving textual lightning strike location label identifying a lightning strike location, the label describing a geographic location of the lightning strike, for a single lightning strike from the lightning strike location data; and

(c) displaying as an overlay on a graphical representation of a geographic area a computer generated marker at the location in the geographic area of the lightning strike along with the lightning strike location label to provide a lightning strike location presentation.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the lightning strike location label identifies the lightning strike location in a format other than as a longitude and latitude.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the lightning strike location label identifies the lightning strike location as a street address.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the lightning strike location data identifies the location of a lightning strike as a latitude and longitude coordinate and wherein deriving a textual lightning strike location label includes deriving a lightning strike location label that identifies the lightning strike location in a format other than as a latitude and longitude from the received latitude and longitude lightning strike location data.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein receiving lightning strike data includes receiving lightning strike data from a source lightning strike data selected from the group of lightning strike data sources comprising the National Lightning Detection Network and the United States Precision Lightning Network.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising filtering the received lightning strike location data using selected filtering conditions and deriving and displaying the lightning strike location label only for lightning strikes satisfying the selected lightning strike filtering conditions.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the selected lightning strike filtering conditions include at least one lightning strike characteristic selected from the group of lightning strike characteristics consisting of lightning strike amplitude, voltage, current, and polarity characteristics.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further including filtering the received lightning strike location data using selected filtering conditions and to derive and display the lightning strike location label only for lightning strikes satisfying the selected lightning filtering conditions, wherein the selected lightning strike filtering conditions include lightning strike characteristics selected from the group of lightning strike characteristics consisting of amplitude, voltage, current and polarity characteristics.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the graphical representation of the geographic area is a satellite image of the geographic area.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 comprising additionally automatically shifting a field of view of the displayed graphical representation of the geographic area from a previous field of view to a new field of view in response to the determination of selected lightning strike locations to be displayed that would be displayed away from the center of the previous field of view such that such selected lightning strike locations are displayed closer to the center of the new field of view.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 comprising additionally broadcasting the lightning strike location presentation as part of a televised weather report presentation.

12. A computer implemented system for generating a lightning strike location presentation, comprising:

(a) a computer-implemented geography database including graphical representations of geographic areas;

(b) a geographic location database of geographic location data;

(c) a graphical display device; and

(d) a computer system connected to the geography database to retrieve graphical representations of geographic areas therefrom, to the geographic location database, to the graphical display device, and to a source of lightning strike data including lightning strike location data and adapted to receive lightning strike location data from the source of lightning strike data; to derive at least one textual lightning strike location label identifying a lightning strike location, the label describing a geographic location of the lightning strike, for a single lightning strike from the lightning strike location, data and the geographic location data in the geographic location database, and to display on the graphical display device as an overlay on a graphical representation of a geographic area a marker at the location in the geographic area of the lightning strike along with the lightning strike location label to provide a lightning strike location presentation.

13. The computer-implemented system of claim 12 , wherein the lightning strike location label identifies the lightning strike location in a format other than as a latitude and longitude.

14. The computer-implemented system of claim 13 , wherein the lightning strike location label identifies the lightning strike location as a street address.

15. The computer-implemented system of claim 12 , wherein the lightning strike location data received from the lightning strike data source identifies the location of a lightning strike as a latitude and longitude coordinate and wherein the computer system is adapted to derive a textual lightning strike location label that identifies the lightning strike location in a format other than as a latitude and longitude from the received latitude and longitude lightning strike location data.

16. The computer-implemented system of claim 12 , wherein the computer system is adapted to automatically shift a field of view of the displayed graphical representation of the geographic area from a previous field of view to a new field of view in response to the determination of selected lightning strike locations to be displayed that would be displayed away from the center of the previous field of view such that such selected lightning strike locations are displayed closer to the center of the new field of view.

17. The computer-implemented system of claim 12 , wherein the computer system is adapted to be connected to a broadcast system and to send the lightning strike location presentation to the broadcast system for broadcasting the lightning strike location presentation as part of a televised weather report presentation.

18. A computer-implemented method of presenting lightning strike information, stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, comprising:

(a) receiving lightning strike data including lightning strike location data from a source thereof at a computer system;

(b) determining a distance of the lightning strike location from a viewer location of interest;

(c) comparing the determined distance to a threshold distance; and

(d) depicting a lightning strike report depicting the determined distance if the determined distance on a map is less than the threshold distance.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , further comprising deriving a textual lightning strike location label identifying a lightning strike location from the lightning 6 strike location data and wherein the lightning strike report includes the textual lightning strike location label, wherein the lightning strike location label identifies the lightning strike location as a street address.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , wherein the lightning strike report includes a textual indication of the determined distance.

Assignments (13)