Belgian Lightning Location System (BELLS)

Total lightning observations, i.e., cloud-to-ground (CG) strokes and intra/inter-cloud (IC) pulses, in Belgium. BELLS data is given in Universal Time! (local time winter = UT +1; local time summer = UT + 2). Each record contains following fields:

1. Network type, 0 = LF, 1 = VHF-TOA, 2 = VHF-ITF, 3 = VLF

2. Year, 1970 to 2032.

3. Month, with January as 1 and December as 12.

4. Day of the month, 1 to 31.

5. Hour, 0 to 23.

6. Minute, 0 to 59.

7. Second, 0 to 60.

8. Nanosecond, 0 to 999999999.

9. Latitude of the calculated location in decimal degrees, to 4 decimal places, -90.0 to 90.0.

10. Longitude of the calculated location in decimal degrees, to 4 decimal places, -180.0 to 180.0.

11. Altitude in meters, -4950 to +60535. This field will be 0 if the altitude is not provided in the lightning data.

12. The altitude uncertainty in meters. This field will be 0 if the altitude uncertainty is not provided in the lightning data.

13. Estimated peak current in kiloamps, -9999 to 9999.

14. VHF Range normalized power, -9999.0 to 9999.0

15. Multiplicity for flash data (1 to 99) or 0 for strokes.

16. Cloud pulse count for the lightning record. This field will be -1 if the lightning did not contain the cloud pulse count attribute.

17. Number of sensors participating in the solution, 2 to 99.

18. Degrees of freedom when optimizing location, 0 to 99.

19. The error ellipse angle as a clockwise bearing from 0 degrees north, 0 to 180.0 degrees

20. The error ellipse semi-major axis length in kilometers, 0 to 50.0km.

21. The error ellipse semi-minor axis length in kilometers, 0 to 50.0km.

22. Chi-squared value from location optimization, 0 to 999.99

23. Rise time of the waveform in microseconds, 0 to 99.9

24. Peak-to-zero time of the waveform in microseconds, 0 to 999.9

25. Maximum rate-of-rise of the waveform in kA/usec (will be a negative rate if discharge is negative), -999.9 to 999.9

26. Cloud indicator, 1 if Cloud-to-cloud discharge, 0 for Cloud-to-ground

27. Angle indicator, 1 if sensor angle data used to compute position, 0 otherwise

28. Signal indicator, 1 if sensor signal data used to compute position, 0 otherwise

29. Timing indicator, 1 if sensor timing data used to compute position, 0 otherwise

30. Flash ID, a unique integer value identifying the flash grouping a stroke belongs to or 0 if not set.

This product is not publically available yet.

Date (Revision): 2025-10-13

Citation identifier: RMI-be / lightning

Status: On going

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium		info@meteo.be	Point of contact
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium		info@meteo.be	Owner

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Atmospheric conditions

Keywords

federal government
observation
lightning

Spatial scope

National

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: No limitations on public access

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the license. You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Classification: Unclassified

Spatial representation type: Vector

Language: English

Topic category

Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere

Begin date: 1998-01-01T00:00:00

Unique resource identifier: EPSG:4258

Distribution format

Name	Version
Text/plain	1.0

Digital transfer options

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link	https://opendata.meteo.be

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Other: dataset

Domain consistency

Name of measure: INSPIRE Conformity

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Explanation: See the referenced specification

Pass: No

Statement: BELLS is a low-frequency ground-based lightning network. The lightning sensors and central processor are based on Vaisala technology. Only lightning records that fulfill certain quality criteria, e.g., length of the semi-major axis, minimum number of sensors participating, are included.

Metadata

File identifier: RMI_DATASET_LIGHTNING XML

Metadata language: English

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Date stamp: 2025-10-13

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium		info@meteo.be	Point of contact

Other language

Language	Character encoding
French	UTF8
Dutch; Flemish	UTF8
German	UTF8

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