Internet of Thunder: Tracking the location of lightning strikes in Smart Cities

We had some minor thunderstorms in Silicon Valley yesterday, a rare occurrence. Given our dry summers, Cal Fire crews were on alert to see if any of the lightning strikes resulted in fires. Turns out more than a few did.

Imagine if we had used smart microphones around the area to triangulate the location of these lightning strikes?  Fire crews would know where to look before there was smoke. This would work similar to Shot Spotter, the array of microphones set up in urban areas to detect and then locate when shots are fired. Difference is now, we have more microphones in more locations already. Granted, you’d need more distributed microphones to be able to deploy this to rural areas. Imagine how much time and property could be saved if we could locate lightning strikes before they became an issue.

Triangulation is what we do at Argus Insights. While we do not locate lightning strikes, we do detect when inspiration strikes a market by tracking what trends are washing over brands, customers and influences. If you’d like to learn more, mosey over to the overview of the Argus Analyzer. We can help you know when inspiration strikes.