Recipes

Recipe: Real-Time Lightning Monitoring

This recipe shows how to retrieve recent lightning strike data near a location.

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

"I want to show users all lightning strikes that occurred within 25 miles of their location in the last 30 minutes."

Call the Lightning strikes by point and radius endpoint with a latitude/longitude and time interval.

Endpoint:

Code
GET https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/{timeInterval}min/geoposition/radius.geojson?apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}&q={latitude},{longitude}&distanceRadius={miles}

Bounding box alternative

If you need strikes across a rectangular area (for example, a map viewport), call the bounding box endpoint instead of point-and-radius:

Code
curl "https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/30min/geoposition/points.geojson?apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}&upperLeft=42.0,-75.0&lowerRight=41.0,-74.0"

Pagination

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


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

while (true) {
  const res = await fetch(
    `https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/30min/geoposition/radius.geojson?apikey=${apiKey}&q=${lat},${lon}&distanceRadius=${radius}&offset=${page}`
  );
  const data = await res.json();
  allStrikes.push(...data.features);

  if (data.features.length < 5000) break; // last page
  page++;
}

Key response fields

Field	Type	Description
`geometry.coordinates`	Array	`[longitude, latitude]` of the strike
`properties.id`	String	Unique strike identifier
`properties.date`	String	Strike time in UTC
`properties.sourceId`	Integer	Data source: `84` (GOES East GLM), `85` (GOES West GLM), `86` (AccuWeather Lightning Network)
`properties.strikeType`	String	`"cg"` (cloud-to-ground), `"ic"` (intra-cloud), or `""` (unknown)
`properties.peakCurrent`	Integer	Strike amperage. Positive = positive polarity (more energetic). Negative = negative polarity (most common). `null` if unavailable.
lysis for lightning forecast recipe

lysis for lightning forecast recipe

Available time intervals

Value	Description
`5`	Last 5 minutes
`15`	Last 15 minutes
`30`	Last 30 minutes
`60`	Last 1 hour
`120`	Last 2 hours

Complete code sample

Copy a full, runnable example that fetches recent lightning strikes and prints a summary of each.

Next steps

Lightning Forecast — check lightning probability for the next 2 hours
Historical Lightning — analyze past lightning activity for a specific date
Lightning Parameters — full API reference

Last modified on May 7, 2026

5-Day Daily Forecast Lightning Forecast

Recipes

Recipe: Real-Time Lightning Monitoring

This recipe shows how to retrieve recent lightning strike data near a location.

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

"I want to show users all lightning strikes that occurred within 25 miles of their location in the last 30 minutes."

Call the Lightning strikes by point and radius endpoint with a latitude/longitude and time interval.

Endpoint:

Code
GET https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/{timeInterval}min/geoposition/radius.geojson?apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}&q={latitude},{longitude}&distanceRadius={miles}

const apiKey = "{YOUR_API_KEY}";
const lat = 41.708;
const lon = -74.733;
const minutes = 30;
const radius = 25;

const response = await fetch(
  `https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/${minutes}min/geoposition/radius.geojson?apikey=${apiKey}&q=${lat},${lon}&distanceRadius=${radius}`
);
const data: Record<string, any> = await response.json();
console.log(`${data.features.length} strikes found`);

Bounding box alternative

If you need strikes across a rectangular area (for example, a map viewport), call the bounding box endpoint instead of point-and-radius:

Code
curl "https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/30min/geoposition/points.geojson?apikey={YOUR_API_KEY}&upperLeft=42.0,-75.0&lowerRight=41.0,-74.0"

Pagination

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


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

while (true) {
  const res = await fetch(
    `https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/30min/geoposition/radius.geojson?apikey=${apiKey}&q=${lat},${lon}&distanceRadius=${radius}&offset=${page}`
  );
  const data = await res.json();
  allStrikes.push(...data.features);

  if (data.features.length < 5000) break; // last page
  page++;
}

Key response fields

Field	Type	Description
`geometry.coordinates`	Array	`[longitude, latitude]` of the strike
`properties.id`	String	Unique strike identifier
`properties.date`	String	Strike time in UTC
`properties.sourceId`	Integer	Data source: `84` (GOES East GLM), `85` (GOES West GLM), `86` (AccuWeather Lightning Network)
`properties.strikeType`	String	`"cg"` (cloud-to-ground), `"ic"` (intra-cloud), or `""` (unknown)
`properties.peakCurrent`	Integer	Strike amperage. Positive = positive polarity (more energetic). Negative = negative polarity (most common). `null` if unavailable.
lysis for lightning forecast recipe

lysis for lightning forecast recipe

Available time intervals

Value	Description
`5`	Last 5 minutes
`15`	Last 15 minutes
`30`	Last 30 minutes
`60`	Last 1 hour
`120`	Last 2 hours

Complete code sample

Copy a full, runnable example that fetches recent lightning strikes and prints a summary of each.

const API_KEY = "{YOUR_API_KEY}";
const lat = 41.708;
const lon = -74.733;
const radius = 25;

// Step 1: Fetch recent strikes (last 30 minutes, within 25 miles)
const res = await fetch(
  `https://apidev.accuweather.com/lightning/v1/30min/geoposition/radius.geojson?apikey=${API_KEY}&q=${lat},${lon}&distanceRadius=${radius}`
);
const data: Record<string, any> = await res.json();

console.log(`\n⚡ ${data.features.length} lightning strike(s) found in the last 30 minutes`);
console.log("━".repeat(42) + "\n");

// Step 2: Parse and print each strike
const sources: Record<number, string> = { 84: "GOES East GLM", 85: "GOES West GLM", 86: "AccuWeather Lightning Network" };

for (const feature of data.features) {
  const [fLon, fLat] = feature.geometry.coordinates;
  const { date, sourceId, strikeType, peakCurrent } = feature.properties;

  const type = strikeType === "cg" ? "Cloud-to-Ground"
            : strikeType === "ic" ? "Intra-Cloud"
            : "Unknown";

  console.log(`Strike at ${fLat}, ${fLon}`);
  console.log(`  Time: ${date} UTC`);
  console.log(`  Type: ${type} | Source: ${sources[sourceId] ?? "Unknown"}`);
  if (peakCurrent !== null) {
    const polarity = peakCurrent > 0 ? "positive" : "negative";
    console.log(`  Peak Current: ${peakCurrent > 0 ? "+" : ""}${peakCurrent}A (${polarity})`);
  }
}

Next steps

Lightning Forecast — check lightning probability for the next 2 hours
Historical Lightning — analyze past lightning activity for a specific date
Lightning Parameters — full API reference

Last modified on May 7, 2026

5-Day Daily Forecast Lightning Forecast

Scenario

1Make the request

2Inspect the response

3Parse the strikes

Bounding box alternative

Pagination

Key response fields

Available time intervals

Complete code sample

Next steps

Scenario

1Make the request

2Inspect the response

3Parse the strikes

Bounding box alternative

Pagination

Key response fields

Available time intervals

Complete code sample

Next steps