Resources · Blog
Written by Flash meteorologists for the athletic trainer, the superintendent, the safety officer and the adjuster — the calls you make in the 60 minutes before a storm and the hours before a heat day.
Lightning decisions
Featured article
Lightning prediction vs detection: why your weather app warns you too late
The alert on your phone was for a strike that already hit the ground. Detection reports the past; prediction gives you up to 60 minutes. What that changes for the person who has to clear the field.
Jason Deese · · 9 min read
Latest
Vendor comparisons
Baron is a broadcast and public-safety weather company: Lynx for TV, Threat Net for alerts on detected strikes. How Threat Net’s lightning alerts compare with a per-cell forecast.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Vendor comparisons
WeatherSTEM sells lightning detection alerts, weather stations and outdoor sirens to schools and venues. How its detection alerts compare with a per-cell lightning forecast.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Lightning decisions
The first 30 was a count from flash to thunder. Current NFHS, NATA and NWS guidance no longer waits for it. The second 30, the all-clear wait, is still the rule.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Vendor comparisons
DTN WeatherSentry is a broad weather dashboard with strike detection, storm tracking and an optional siren. Flash is built around the hour before the first strike. Where each one fits.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Vendor comparisons
The Sferic Siren is a proven horn-and-strobe system on a total lightning network. Flash forecasts the hour before the first strike. What each does well, and how they work together.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Vendor comparisons
Perry Weather confirms strikes from the NLDN and ships sirens and an on-site station. Flash forecasts the hour before the first strike. What each does well, and when to run both.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Vendor comparisons
Both aim to warn before the first strike. Thor Guard does it with an on-site electrostatic sensor; Flash with a forecast for every 1×1 km cell. How the approaches differ, and who each suits.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Lightning decisions
About 10 miles is the working answer, and more is possible. Why lightning reaches past the rain, how to estimate distance from thunder, and how to turn it into a radius.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Lightning decisions
The sections every lightning emergency action plan needs, drawn from NFHS, NCAA, NATA and NWS guidance, with a one-page outline you can adapt for your venue.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Lightning decisions
What the high school and college guidelines actually ask of an athletic director, side by side with the NATA position statement your trainers work from.
Flash Meteorology Desk ·
Lightning Strikes
A tribute to Matthew Jenkins, a 20-year-old Disney College Program participant who tragically lost his life to a Florida lightning strike, and a reflection on weather safety.
Madison Deese ·
Lightning Strikes
Lightning took two innocent lives in Florida, turning an ordinary day into a tragedy. Learn how to donate to the Glasgow family here.
Madison Deese ·
Lightning Strikes
From shelf clouds in Chicago to widespread severe storm damage and lightning strikes in Ohio, August is off to a fast start.
Dave Downey ·
Lightning decisions
Lead time, radius, the all-clear — and who makes the call.
All-clear
The timer starts at the last strike
Why the timer starts at the last strike, not the last rumble — and how prediction moves the first decision earlier.
Jason Deese · 18 Sep 2026 · 7 min read
1×1 km grid
A course spans several cells
A course, a campus or a yard spans several cells. How alerts are scored across them, and which cell wakes the horn.
Flash Meteorology Desk · 9 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
Policy
A rule trainers will actually follow
A wide radius, a tight radius, or the cell next door — the trade-offs in false alarms and lost minutes.
Jason Deese · 26 Aug 2026 · 8 min read
Heat & WBGT planning
Turning a WBGT forecast into a practice schedule that survives the afternoon.
WBGT
Forecast plans, reading records
The reading decides compliance. The forecast decides whether you still have a practice to run.
Jason Deese · 15 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
State by state
Same instrument, different bands
Same instrument, different bands. What travels between states and what doesn't.
Flash Meteorology Desk · 2 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
Surface and shade
The turf runs hotter than the town
Surface, shade and wind: three reasons the globe thermometer reads hotter than the airport.
Flash Meteorology Desk · 20 Aug 2026 · 5 min read
Hail & property
Up to 55 minutes of warning, and what each industry does with it.
Method
Four years of CONUS storm data
The convective storm data the hail model is built on, 2021 through 2024, and what it means for lead time.
Jason Deese · 28 Jul 2026 · 9 min read
Playbook
What moves under cover first
Up to 55 minutes of warning. The order of operations for the lot, the service bay and the delivery truck.
Flash Meteorology Desk · 12 Aug 2026 · 6 min read
Roofing
Size class, and what adjusters look for
Severe, damaging, destructive — and what adjusters look for after each.
Flash Meteorology Desk · 30 Jun 2026 · 5 min read
Accuracy & methods
Every number we publish comes with its window, its ground truth and its period. Ask the same of everyone.
Scoring
Window, ground truth, period
A one-hour window, NLDN strikes as truth, a stated period. Here is the arithmetic.
Jason Deese · 5 Sep 2026 · 8 min read
Metrics
What each number can and can't say
What each metric measures, what it can't, and why the window matters more than the headline.
Flash Meteorology Desk · 21 Aug 2026 · 7 min read
Field guide
Prediction, sensors, detection
Three technologies, three different questions answered. Which one your policy actually needs.
Jason Deese · 10 Jul 2026 · 6 min read
Agentic weather
Plain-language questions, answers or actions in the tools you already run — and where the guardrails sit.
Storm day
Ask it the way you'd ask a colleague
From "which site sees lightning first?" to "who was warned?" — the questions, the answers and the tools each one landed in.
Flash Meteorology Desk · 19 Sep 2026 · 8 min read
Permissions
When it acts, and when it asks
Permissions per connector, a log for every action, and a person confirming before any schedule or record changes.
Jason Deese · 12 Sep 2026 · 7 min read
Connectors
Into the tools the yard already runs
Two connectors, one afternoon: what to authorise, what gets written where, and how to read the audit file afterwards.
Flash Meteorology Desk · 4 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
Start here
Evergreen, dated, and reviewed against the accuracy method. Read these before any vendor call.
01
How we score up to 99.6%: a one-hour window, NLDN ground-truth strikes and hits over hits plus misses, with the false-alarm ratio tracked beside it.
02
Three technologies that answer three different questions. Which one your lightning policy actually needs, in plain language.
03
A dated, sourced comparison: what detection-based tools measure, how each is priced, and what "real-time" means once the strike has already happened.
Field notes · Monthly
One email a month from the meteorology desk.
What changed in the model, what the season taught us, which policy pages we updated. No promotions.
Live demo · No sensors required for the forecast
We'll load your locations, replay last season's strikes against Flash's predictions, and show you the alert log your safety officer would have received.