Meteorage

Tomorrow at , we'll be discussing: How can wind farm operators turn lightning information into better decisions before, during and after every thunderstorm?
📍 Hall A4, Stand 307

🍽️ Don't miss our Lunch & Learn with RECASE Regenerative Energien GmbH, 23 September 2026, 11:00 AM
Hall B3, Meeting Room Kopenhagen 4

Programme and registration here ➡ https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=iAMgZLtV7kKMHDPdtIhQ4_ok1l6MGAhKquTWc5NbhNBUMkpaNE8zTVZaS0NLODhTTFZITE0zSU5JWC4u&utm_source=brevo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RECASE%20Event%202026
⚡ Be Thunderstorm Ready.

Save the date!
Join METEORAGE and RECASE Regenerative Energien GmbH for an exclusive Lunch 🍽️ & Learn during hashtag .
📅 23 September 2026, 11:00 AM
📍 Hall B3, Meeting Room Kopenhagen 4

Wind farms are highly exposed to thunderstorms and lightning. Each year, 4-8% of wind turbines suffer lightning-related damage, making lightning one of the leading operational challenges for the wind energy sector. 🌩️

During this session, our experts will share practical lessons learned from real-world cases and explain how a structured approach to lightning risk management can support safer and more efficient operations.
✅ Early warning systems
✅ Real-time lightning monitoring
✅ Targeted post-thunderstorm inspections
✅ Smarter operational decision-making

Our solutions are compliant with international standards:
• IEC 61400-24 (lightning protection for wind turbines)
• IEC 62305 series (lightning protection)
• IEC 62793 (Thunderstorm Warning Systems)
• IEC 62858 (Lightning Location Systems)

⚡ Be Thunderstorm Ready. Join us!

⚡ Lightning is one of nature’s most complex and fascinating phenomena. While millions of lightning flashes occur every day around the world, some rare events challenge our understanding of atmospheric electricity.

On 6 November 2025, an exceptionally powerful lightning flash over the Toulouse region generated hundreds of reactions on social media and widespread coverage in national and local media.

At first glance, the event appeared exceptional due to its brightness, intense thunder and unexpected occurrence over a densely populated area.

A recent study published in La Météorologie revisits this event through a comprehensive analysis combining lightning detection data, observations, radar measurements and atmospheric electric field monitoring.

Co-authored by Stéphane Pédeboy (Meteorage) alongside researchers from the Université de Toulouse, CNRS, IRD and AGH University of Krakow, the study reconstructs the lightning flash and the thunderstorm environment that produced it.

The research reveals that the flash combined characteristics of both a superbolt and a spider lightning, propagating over nearly 100 km and lasting approximately 3 seconds within a large mesoscale convective system.

One of the study's key findings is that the flash developed within the thunderstorm's stratiform region, far from its most active convective core. A reminder that the most intense cloud-to-ground flashes do not necessarily occur where the thunderstorm appears most threatening.

Beyond this exceptional case study, this work illustrates the importance of combining scientific expertise, high-quality lightning observations and long-term datasets to better understand how extreme electrical discharges develop and propagate within large thunderstorm systems.

📖 Read the publication: https://lameteorologie.fr/issues/2026/134/meteo_2026_134_62

Save the date!
Join METEORAGE and RECASE Regenerative Energien GmbH for an exclusive Lunch 🍽️ & Learn during hashtag .
📅 23 September 2026, 11:00 AM
📍 Hall B3, Meeting Room Kopenhagen 4

Wind farms are highly exposed to thunderstorms and lightning. Each year, 4-8% of wind turbines suffer lightning-related damage, making lightning one of the leading operational challenges for the wind energy sector. 🌩️

During this session, our experts will share practical lessons learned from real-world cases and explain how a structured approach to lightning risk management can support safer and more efficient operations.
✅ Early warning systems
✅ Real-time lightning monitoring
✅ Targeted post-thunderstorm inspections
✅ Smarter operational decision-making

Our solutions are compliant with international standards:
• IEC 61400-24 (lightning protection for wind turbines)
• IEC 62305 series (lightning protection)
• IEC 62793 (Thunderstorm Warning Systems)
• IEC 62858 (Lightning Location Systems)

⚡ Be Thunderstorm Ready. Join us!

EUROPE UNDER LIGHTNING: SUMMER 2026 IN NUMBERS ⛈️
As the meteorological summer comes to an end, let's look back at three months of thunderstorm activity across Europe.
⚡893,458 cloud-to-ground lightning flashes.
📅 August alone accounted for 43% of the season's lightning activity. The summer's most electrically active day occurred on 20 August, with 46,971 cloud-to-ground lightning flashes detected in a single day.

🎙️ The Expert’s View — Joris Royet, Weather Project Manager
“The meteorological summer of 2026 was marked by several severe thunderstorm outbreaks across Europe. Multiple weather patterns favoured the development of supercells capable of producing large hail, destructive wind gusts and locally even tornadoes.
Electrical activity was particularly concentrated during the second half of June and throughout an exceptionally active August, when several intense thunderstorm waves affected large parts of Europe.
Italy once again ranked among the most lightning-prone countries in Europe, benefiting from strong summer instability, Mediterranean air masses and topographic effects that frequently trigger thunderstorms.
Conversely, Portugal and southwestern Spain experienced relatively limited lightning activity. Atmospheric patterns often favoured thunderstorm development ahead of weather systems rather than directly over these regions.
While summer 2026 does not rank among the most lightning-active summers of recent years, it clearly stands above summer 2025, which was marked by particularly low lightning activity.”

👉 Read the full summer lightning report here: https://www.meteorage.com/thunderstorm-report/european-summer-2026/

⭐ The best way to explain Meteorage is through the people who use it every day.
4,000+ customers in 70+ countries rely on us to make the right decisions when thunderstorms threaten.

Every organization faces different challenges.
For some, it's protecting workers or the public on site.
For others, it's about maintaining operations safely, planning inspections, or assessing potential impacts on critical infrastructure.
And for many, it's about achieving both: keeping people safe while ensuring operational continuity.

Across all these different sectors, one thing remains the same: the need for reliable information to act at the right time.

🤝 Thank you for making Meteorage part of your daily operations !

EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg, Sanofi, Arkema, WeatherQuest, FNHPA - Fédération nationale de l'Hôtellerie de plein air, Parc Aventure Geneve Evaux, Grand port maritime de Nantes-Saint-Nazaire

🌩️ On 24 August 2026, a powerful thunderstorm outbreak swept across Southern France, Spain and Northern Italy, producing tornadoes, giant hail, destructive wind gusts and intense lightning activity.
Meteorage detected 272,513 lightning flashes across the affected area, making it one of the most electrically active thunderstorm days of the year.

⚠️ Beyond the numbers, this outbreak generated significant operational impacts. In just a few hours, thunderstorms disrupted transport networks, damaged infrastructure, triggered power outages and lightning-related fires, and threatened public safety. For organisations exposed to the risk, the challenge is the disruption that follows.

So, what atmospheric conditions allowed thunderstorms to become so organised and intense?
In this case study, Joris Royet, Weather Project Manager at Meteorage, explains the meteorological mechanisms behind this severe weather event.

💡 On the map, the colour gradient represents Meteorage's forecasted thunderstorm probability, while the hatched areas correspond to lightning flashes detected by our network.

⚡ Follow us for expert insights on thunderstorms, lightning risk and operational resilience.

⚡ Have you ever wondered how we know exactly where lightning strikes?

Every lightning flash emits electromagnetic waves that can travel hundreds of kilometres.

A network of more than 130 interconnected Meteorage sensors 📡 across Western Europe continuously detects these signals and records key information such as their arrival time and direction.

By combining measurements from multiple sensors, our central processing system accurately locates 📍 each lightning flash and determines its characteristics, including its intensity and polarity.

This lightning data is then processed through our 💻 CATS (Computer Aided Thunderstorm Services) platform, transforming detections into operational information that organisations can use every day: real-time alerts 🚨, monitoring solutions, reports and analytics 📊.

These services help users anticipate risks and adapt operations in real time.

Nearly 40 years of technological innovation have improved our location accuracy from several kilometres in 1987 to around 100 metres today.

👉 Swipe to discover every step, from lightning flash to operational decision.

Misconception: A weak thunderstorm can't be dangerous. 🌩️
False.

When people think about lightning risk, they often imagine severe thunderstorms, high weather warnings and extreme conditions.
But the reality is often very different.

Our analysis of lightning-related accidents in France and Europe over +10 years showed that:
63% of accidents occurred during thunderstorms with low to moderate lightning activity.
In nearly two-thirds of cases, these thunderstorms moved slowly (20-40 km/h) or were almost stationary (

🌍 International Youth Day

At Meteorage, one of the 7 objectives of our CSR approach is to develop a stronger culture of risk and prevention.

Understanding risk is the first step towards managing it.

That is why we are committed to sharing knowledge, supporting educational initiatives, raising awareness of lightning and thunderstorm risks, and helping future generations discover science, meteorology and risk management.

This commitment takes many forms:
🔬 Contributing to scientific studies, conferences and knowledge-sharing initiatives
🎓 Supporting projects and awareness programmes
👩‍🎓 Welcoming students and trainees each year to help transmit expertise to future generations

Because improving safety starts with improving understanding.