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STORM forecasters could glean vital information simply by watching lightning strikes, says a researcher who has confirmed an idea first proposed in the 1960s.

鈥淣ature has given us a wonderful remote-sensing tool. Lightning is one of the easiest things in earth science to see,鈥� says Dennis Boccippio from NASA鈥檚 Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. Ordinary video cameras on weather satellites easily pick up lightning, he says, and could help warn of tornadoes and severe weather.

The amount of lightning a storm creates depends on the energy it holds. In 1963, atmospheric scientist Bernie Vonnegut proposed that energy also relates to other characteristics of storms, including their size.

But when others extended his work, they came up with theories that didn鈥檛 match reality鈥攅specially for lightning strikes over the ocean. That led some to despair that the simple relationships Vonnegut originally proposed didn鈥檛 hold true. The discrepancy was also bad news for researchers who had relied on the theories to estimate how much ozone is produced globally by lightning strikes.

But Boccippio says the basic principles hold, and that the problem lies in mistakes made in equations that were based on Vonnegut鈥檚 work. He has derived new equations, and says the predictions they make fit modern satellite observations. 鈥淭hese relationships had fallen out of favour. But now we鈥檝e shown that they have testable predictions that seem to work,鈥� he says.

Vonnegut鈥檚 approach won鈥檛 necessarily be the best way to help forecast storms. But, Boccippio says, 鈥渨e have come a long way in convincing ourselves that the task is achievable.鈥�