HUNTSVILLE – And, in a flash, National Lightning Safety Awareness Week (June 19-25) was over. But, not before CFD Research was awarded a contract to develop short-term lightning prediction products.

The Huntsville-based company won the contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. CFD Research will also help provide data services to support commercial and public weather applications.

The award also addresses Weather Enterprise – a goal of the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise to help reduce injury and lost productivity due to lightning.

The Weather Enterprise is comprised of three main contributors to meteorology and  forecasting – academia, government, and America’s weather industry. They play a critical role in understanding, observing, forecasting, and helping warn communities of danger; working together to build a weather-ready nation.

“Lightning impacts many aspects of our daily lives and is responsible for billions of dollars in property and industry losses every year,” said Elise Schultz, CFD research principal investigator for the project. “The development of our short-term lightning prediction products including lightning initiation and cessation and data services API using NOAA’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper, generates services enabling proactive response to lightning threats and use in integrated decision support services.”

CFD Research’s application programming interface will include archived and real-time functionality throughout the entire GLM field of view.

Leveraging CFD Research’s experience in software development and applied lightning research, this API will provide a simplified framework for serving near-hemispheric lightning information available on NOAA’s Big Data Project.

“This (Big Data) project builds upon and transitions research and operational lightning information into applications that can be readily used and understood for the average, non-meteorologist user,” said Sami Habchi, CFD research executive vice president.

CFD Research is serving as a WeatherReady Nation Ambassador, a NOAA initiative to formally recognize NOAA partners who are improving the nation’s readiness, responsiveness, and overall resilience against extreme weather, water, and climate events.

As a WRN ambassador, CFD Research is committed to working with NOAA and other ambassadors to strengthen national resilience against extreme weather.