What "Last Strike Near Me" Means
The "last strike near you" is the most recent lightning flash detected within a defined radius of your current location. The radius depends on the tool:
- Mobile app — uses device GPS, defaults to 50 km radius for free users (configurable for premium).
- State lightning map — uses the state's bounding box (whole-state coverage).
- City lightning map — uses an 80 km radius around the city centre, covering metro area + nearby suburbs.
Three Ways to Find the Last Strike Near You
1. State or city lightning map
Browse to the lightning map for your state. The "Last strike" field shows the timestamp of the most recent detected flash; the map below shows up to 50 most recent flashes plotted on OpenStreetMap. Browse:
2. Mobile app with GPS
Lightning Tracker uses device GPS to query NOAA GOES East/West GLM data for the nearest recent optical-flash detection. The result includes:
- Distance in miles and kilometres
- Bearing (compass direction from your location to the strike)
- Time-since-detection
- Age of the reported detection
3. Flash-to-bang (no app required)
Heard thunder? Count seconds between flash and bang, divide by 5 — that's the distance in miles to the most recent strike audible from your location. See our flash-to-bang guide.
What "Near" Means in Safety Terms
Do not use a mapped distance as an outdoor safety threshold. If thunder is audible, move to a substantial building or hard-topped vehicle and stay there for at least 30 minutes after the last thunder. Once inside, avoid plumbing, corded phones, and plugged-in electronics; see indoor lightning safety.
How GOES GLM Represents Each Flash
NOAA GOES East/West GLM sensors detect optical pulses associated with lightning at 500 frames per second. Processing clusters illuminated pixels into events, events into groups, and groups into flashes. Lightning Tracker displays the reported flash location or centroid and timestamp.
Marker precision varies with sensor geometry, parallax, cloud conditions, and processing. Dense radio networks can provide finer local geolocation, while satellite GLM provides broad optical coverage. Neither source guarantees that a plotted point is the exact ground-contact location. See the methodology and limitations.
Get Push Notifications
To skip the manual check, open the lightning alert tool to set a saved radius and understand notification delivery limits.