Weather24What it is and where the data comes from
Weather24 is a weather app for iPhone and Android. These pages are the browser version of the same tool: the map, the lightning counter and the hourly values run on exactly the same data as the app, with no account and nothing to install.
How the map works
Rain and storm intensity are drawn from numerical data, not ready-made images: that's why the colour scale matches the app exactly and the timelapse runs as smooth motion instead of jumping between frames.
Lightning is a separate layer. Each symbol sits where the strike was located and fades with age, so at a glance you can tell what is happening now from what happened nine minutes ago. The counter and the circle drawn around it describe the same area: it counts strikes inside the circle and nothing else.
The time bar covers the last two hours and the next hour, in hourly steps; the amber line marks the present. The time of the frame on screen is always shown under the map — the moment what you see refers to, not the moment you opened the page.
Where the data comes from
Four data streams, listed below. Nothing on these pages is generated, estimated or filled in by hand when a source doesn't respond: if a stream doesn't arrive, the page says so instead of showing a number.
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1
Lightning
Individual strikes located by a lightning detection network, which works out the position from the time the signal takes to reach several receivers. On the map we keep only the last 10 minutes; for the 24-hour statistics we store strikes in our own archive.
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2
Rain and storm cells
Calculated from open forecast models — the same public model runs that national weather services publish. Map frames step forward one hour at a time, and the numbers in the hourly chart come from the same run, so the map and the bars never contradict each other.
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3
Current conditions
Temperature, wind and precipitation come from Open-Meteo's forecast API, requested for the coordinates of the place you are looking at.
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4
Base map
Cartography built on OpenStreetMap data and served by OpenFreeMap. Place search uses Open-Meteo's geocoder.
Open-Meteo data is used under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence; map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Both are credited in the footer of every page.
What we don't do
We don't issue warnings. Nothing you see here is an official warning, and the only way to see it is to open the page. In the UK, weather warnings come from the Met Office: when severe weather is the question, that's the source.
We don't predict where lightning will strike. The map shows strikes that have already been measured. What the app adds is an alert when a storm cell is getting close, which is not the same as predicting a single strike — nobody can do that.
We don't track you. No account, no cookies, no ad trackers: just our host's cookieless visit count, with no profiling and nothing passed on to third parties. How app and site data is handled is in the privacy policy; the rules of use are in the terms. For anything else, write to support@weather24.app.
The app
Weather24 is free on the App Store and Google Play. The publisher, current version and user reviews are on the store listings.