WeatherFlow Users Lightning Rule

Anyone with WeatherFlow Weather Stations interested in a lightning rule to notify you when there is lightning in the area, and possibly run other rules based off of it.

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I would add "LightningStrikeLastDistance" as a if condition in the actions, if you dont you are going to get a lot of notification for lighting miles away.

No, there is only 1 notification the trigger is = 1, it doesn't notify again until after there has been zero for over an hour. The screen shot shows that the current count at time of screen capture is 31, but I've only had one notification occur

Ok makes sense. I thought it would count up the strikes in the last hour.

I would still add a distance portion in (personally) because I would only care if the lightning gets within 10 or so miles. Maybe have an additional notice if there is any around a mile or so (if I wanted to shut down anything important).

Not that I plan to do so, but now that I have a WeatherFlow it is an option.

@waynespringer79: Thanks for the idea!

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My reasoning for not adding distance, was because not always am I immediately available to shut anything down, and this way gives me a buffer to get to a closer vicinity to be able to if need be. Most of our storms seem to move at around 50+ mph so once I've been notified of a strike 30 miles away, it gives me about a 30 minute buffer to get home or get online and access.

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Oh that would be another WAF issue. Shut down the electronics when the lightening gets close. There is nothing like shutting down the internet as the wife is getting to the best part of a movie. :smile:

Ha! I would never shut that down! I like living too much. :grinning:

I was thinking more of things like people with pools (I do not) or large outdoor decorations like inflatables, or maybe antenna-related equipment. None of those apply to me nor am I in a house that has to worry too much about lightning. But I was thinking of them as possibilities overall.

I STRONGLY urge you to not use any distance calculations out of the AS3935 lightning detector chip. It is a guestimate at best, and a joke many other times. That chip was designed for use in portable electronic lightning warning devices for soccer moms, not as a scientific instrument.

Also, I don't know what HE driver you are using for this. If it is using UDP data from the WF Hub, I personally have doubts that the lightning packets are being broadcast for every strike via UDP.....

Based upon my observation of when it detects lightning and where a storm is located on the radar, I can confirm it is absolutely "accurate enough"

The purpose of this rule is NOT to determine the "amount of" lightning, instead it's purpose is to detect "when lightning starts to occur"

I use my driver, accessing their API, not the UDP broadcast (because Hubitat does not monitor for UDP broadcasts). Not sure if they do much (or any) cleanup of the data before the API provides it back.

I use UDP via Node Red / Maker API for everything but Lightning and Wind Direction in which I use your driver/API

From what I read on the WeatherFlow site the lightening data is aggregated in the cloud services using data from multiple sensors before pushed out though the API, this is supposed to make the distance data more accurate.

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