https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191108074854.htm

At EPFL's School of Engineering, researchers in the Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory, led by Farhad Rachidi, have developed a simple and inexpensive system that can predict when lightning will strike to the nearest 10 to 30 minutes, within a 30-kilometer radius. The system uses a combination of standard meteorological data and artificial intelligence. The research paper has been published in Climate and Atmospheric Science, a Nature partner journal. The researchers are now planning to use their technology in the European Laser Lightning Rod project.

"Current systems are slow and very complex, and they require expensive external data acquired by radar or satellite," explains Amirhossein Mostajabi, the PhD student who came up with the technique. "Our method uses data that can be obtained from any weather station. That means we can cover remote regions that are out of radar and satellite range and where communication networks are unavailable."