Recipes

Recipe: Historical Lightning

This recipe shows how to query historical lightning data to find out whether strikes occurred near a location on a given date.

These recipes are teaching examples — not production code.

Host: examples use the development host apidev.accuweather.com. Switch to api.accuweather.com for production.
Production hardening: GZIP compression, caching, retries with exponential backoff, and error handling are not included. See the Best Practices guide.

Scenario

"There was a big storm last week. I want to see how many lightning strikes happened near my area that day."

Call the Historical lightning endpoint with a location's coordinates, a search radius, and the date you're interested in.

Endpoint:

Code
GET https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/historical/geoposition/radius?apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}&q={latitude},{longitude}&distanceRadius={miles}&startDate={mm/dd/yyyy}

Add &strikeType=cg to filter results to cloud-to-ground strikes only — the type most relevant for ground-level impact.

Pagination

Results come in pages of 5,000. Use the offset parameter as a page index (0 = first set, 1 = second set, etc.) to fetch additional pages:

Key response fields

Field	Type	Description
`resultsCount`	Integer	Total number of lightning strikes returned
`lightningSummary.positiveStrikes`	Integer	Count of positively-charged strikes
`lightningSummary.negativeStrikes`	Integer	Count of negatively-charged strikes
`lightningSummary.closestStrike`	Object	GeoJSON feature of the strike nearest to the search center
`lightningStrikes.features[]`	Array	GeoJSON features for each individual strike
`properties.strikeType`	String	`"cg"` (cloud-to-ground), `"ic"` (intra-cloud), or `""` (unknown)
`properties.peakCurrent`	Integer	Strike amperage. Positive = more energetic. Negative = most common. `null` if unavailable.
`properties.sourceId`	Integer	`84` (GOES East GLM), `85` (GOES West GLM), `86` (AccuWeather Lightning Network)

Understanding peak current

Polarity	Description	Significance
Positive (+)	Positively-charged cloud-to-ground strike	Typically more energetic. Carries more charge, longer duration.
Negative (-)	Negatively-charged cloud-to-ground strike	Most common type of lightning (~90% of CG strikes).
`null`	Not available	Data source does not provide amperage (GLM satellites).

Complete code sample

Copy a full, runnable example that queries historical lightning data and prints a summary.

Next steps

Real-Time Lightning — monitor current strikes near a location
Lightning Forecast — check lightning probability for the next 2 hours
Lightning Parameters — full API reference

Last modified on May 7, 2026

Lightning Forecast

Recipes

Recipe: Historical Lightning

This recipe shows how to query historical lightning data to find out whether strikes occurred near a location on a given date.

These recipes are teaching examples — not production code.

Host: examples use the development host apidev.accuweather.com. Switch to api.accuweather.com for production.
Production hardening: GZIP compression, caching, retries with exponential backoff, and error handling are not included. See the Best Practices guide.

Scenario

"There was a big storm last week. I want to see how many lightning strikes happened near my area that day."

Call the Historical lightning endpoint with a location's coordinates, a search radius, and the date you're interested in.

Endpoint:

Code
GET https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/historical/geoposition/radius?apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}&q={latitude},{longitude}&distanceRadius={miles}&startDate={mm/dd/yyyy}

const apiKey = "{YOUR_API_KEY}";
const lat = 28.37;
const lon = -81.57;
const radius = 20;
const date = "10/27/2025";

const res = await fetch(
  `https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/historical/geoposition/radius?apikey=${apiKey}&q=${lat},${lon}&distanceRadius=${radius}&startDate=${encodeURIComponent(date)}`
);
const data: Record<string, any> = await res.json();
console.log(`Total strikes: ${data.resultsCount}`);

Add &strikeType=cg to filter results to cloud-to-ground strikes only — the type most relevant for ground-level impact.

Pagination

Results come in pages of 5,000. Use the offset parameter as a page index (0 = first set, 1 = second set, etc.) to fetch additional pages:

let allStrikes: any[] = [];
let page = 0;

while (true) {
  const res = await fetch(
    `https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/historical/geoposition/radius?apikey=${apiKey}&q=${lat},${lon}&distanceRadius=${radius}&startDate=${encodeURIComponent(date)}&offset=${page}`
  );
  const pageData = await res.json();
  allStrikes.push(...pageData.lightningStrikes.features);
  if (pageData.lightningStrikes.features.length < 5000) break;
  page++;
}

Key response fields

Field	Type	Description
`resultsCount`	Integer	Total number of lightning strikes returned
`lightningSummary.positiveStrikes`	Integer	Count of positively-charged strikes
`lightningSummary.negativeStrikes`	Integer	Count of negatively-charged strikes
`lightningSummary.closestStrike`	Object	GeoJSON feature of the strike nearest to the search center
`lightningStrikes.features[]`	Array	GeoJSON features for each individual strike
`properties.strikeType`	String	`"cg"` (cloud-to-ground), `"ic"` (intra-cloud), or `""` (unknown)
`properties.peakCurrent`	Integer	Strike amperage. Positive = more energetic. Negative = most common. `null` if unavailable.
`properties.sourceId`	Integer	`84` (GOES East GLM), `85` (GOES West GLM), `86` (AccuWeather Lightning Network)

Understanding peak current

Polarity	Description	Significance
Positive (+)	Positively-charged cloud-to-ground strike	Typically more energetic. Carries more charge, longer duration.
Negative (-)	Negatively-charged cloud-to-ground strike	Most common type of lightning (~90% of CG strikes).
`null`	Not available	Data source does not provide amperage (GLM satellites).

Complete code sample

Copy a full, runnable example that queries historical lightning data and prints a summary.

const API_KEY = "{YOUR_API_KEY}";
const lat = 28.37;
const lon = -81.57;
const radius = 20;
const date = "10/27/2025";

// Step 1: Fetch historical lightning data
const res = await fetch(
  `https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/historical/geoposition/radius?apikey=${API_KEY}&q=${lat},${lon}&distanceRadius=${radius}&startDate=${encodeURIComponent(date)}`
);
const data: Record<string, any> = await res.json();

// Step 2: Summarize the activity
const summary = data.lightningSummary;
const totalCG = summary.positiveStrikes + summary.negativeStrikes;
const closest = summary.closestStrike.features[0];
const [closestLon, closestLat] = closest.geometry.coordinates;

console.log("\n⚡ Lightning Summary");
console.log("━".repeat(36));
console.log(`Date:              ${date}`);
console.log(`Search area:       ${radius} miles from ${lat}, ${lon}`);
console.log(`Total strikes:     ${data.resultsCount}`);
console.log(`Cloud-to-ground:   ${totalCG} (${summary.positiveStrikes} positive, ${summary.negativeStrikes} negative)`);
console.log(`Closest strike:    ${closestLat.toFixed(4)}, ${closestLon.toFixed(4)}`);
console.log(`Closest time:      ${closest.properties.date}`);

Next steps

Real-Time Lightning — monitor current strikes near a location
Lightning Forecast — check lightning probability for the next 2 hours
Lightning Parameters — full API reference

Last modified on May 7, 2026

Lightning Forecast

Scenario

1Make the request

2Inspect the response

3Summarize the activity

4Find the strongest strikes

Pagination

Key response fields

Understanding peak current

Complete code sample

Next steps

Scenario

1Make the request

2Inspect the response

3Summarize the activity

4Find the strongest strikes

Pagination

Key response fields

Understanding peak current

Complete code sample

Next steps