À propos

ZAPPOLLO est une carte mondiale gratuite de la foudre et de la météo en temps réel.

Nous réunissons le réseau mondial Blitzortung.org et les données OpenWeather sur une carte rapide et soignée — en direct, avec historique et analyse. La version gratuite ne nécessite pas de compte.

Premium ajoute le relief 3D, l’historique 24–48 h, sans publicité et des alertes par lieu. Business propose des tableaux de bord, une API et des rapports certifiés.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ZAPPOLLO?

ZAPPOLLO is a free web app that shows real-time lightning strikes and live weather on an interactive 3D world map. It visualises lightning the moment it is detected, overlays weather layers, and lets you replay the last few hours of storm activity on a timeline.

Is ZAPPOLLO free to use?

Yes. The live map and the real-time lightning feed are completely free and require no account and no API key. An optional free OpenWeather API key — which you paste into the settings and which is stored only in your browser — unlocks the weather layers (precipitation, clouds, temperature, wind, pressure).

Do I need to create an account?

No. ZAPPOLLO works without registration for viewing the live lightning map. An account is only needed for optional premium features.

Where does the lightning data come from?

Live lightning comes from Blitzortung.org, a free, community-operated lightning-detection network of volunteer-run receiving stations. Strikes are streamed to the app in real time over a WebSocket connection.

How is lightning detected and located?

Ground stations record the radio pulse (a “sferic”) emitted by each lightning discharge. Because the pulse reaches different stations at slightly different times, the strike position is computed by Time-of-Arrival (TOA) multilateration — comparing those tiny timing differences across many stations.

How accurate and how fast is the lightning data?

Strikes typically appear within a second or two of the discharge. Location accuracy depends on how many stations detected the strike and the local station density — it is generally within a few kilometres in well-covered regions. ZAPPOLLO’s free tier is intended for visualisation and situational awareness, not certified or safety-critical use.

Where does the weather data come from?

Weather layers and place forecasts come from OpenWeather. Rain radar uses RainViewer. The base map uses OpenStreetMap data with CARTO tiles, and the satellite view uses Sentinel-2 cloudless imagery.

What weather layers are available?

Precipitation, clouds, temperature, wind and pressure, each with an adjustable opacity slider. You can also tap any point or search a place to see its current weather plus temperature and wind history graphs.

How far back does the lightning history go?

Up to about six hours. Strikes are stored locally in your browser (IndexedDB) and can be replayed on a timeline with a scrubber, play/pause, and 30×–300× time-lapse speeds.

What is the 3D globe view?

ZAPPOLLO can render the world as a 3D globe with a starfield, an atmosphere halo, directional light and shadow, a day/night terminator and city lights. You can switch between the 3D globe and a flat map at any time.

Does ZAPPOLLO work on mobile?

Yes. It is fully responsive and touch-friendly, and it can be installed as a Progressive Web App (PWA) so it behaves like a native app and opens from your home screen.

Is my data and API key private?

Yes. Any API key you enter (for example an OpenWeather key) is stored only in your browser’s local storage and is never sent to or stored on a ZAPPOLLO server.

What is Demo mode?

Demo mode simulates thunderstorms so you can explore the timeline, graphs and animations without waiting for real lightning and without any API key.

Which languages does ZAPPOLLO support?

The interface is available in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Chinese.

Can I use ZAPPOLLO commercially?

The free tier relies on data sources (such as Blitzortung.org) that are intended for private, non-commercial use. For commercial or certified lightning data, contact us about business and API options.

Is there a developer API?

Yes — ZAPPOLLO offers a developer API for lightning and weather data. See the API page for endpoints, rate limits and access.

How do I share a specific location or view?

Use the share action to copy a link that encodes the current map centre and zoom, so anyone opening it lands on exactly the same view.

Does ZAPPOLLO work offline?

As an installed PWA it loads its interface offline and shows the most recent cached data, but live lightning and weather of course require an internet connection.

Glossary — lightning & weather terms

Lightning
A sudden electrostatic discharge between electrically charged regions of a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the ground.
Cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning
A lightning discharge that occurs between a thundercloud and the ground — the type most relevant to safety on the surface.
Intra-cloud (IC) lightning
A lightning discharge that occurs within a single cloud, between its charged regions; the most common form of lightning.
Stroke
A single electrical discharge within a lightning flash. One flash can contain several strokes along the same channel.
Flash
The complete lightning event a viewer perceives, made up of one or more strokes.
Sferic
The broadband radio-frequency pulse (atmospheric) emitted by a lightning discharge, used by detection networks to locate strikes.
Blitzortung.org
A free, community-run lightning-location network of volunteer receiving stations whose real-time data powers ZAPPOLLO’s free lightning feed.
Time of Arrival (TOA)
A locating method that uses the precise time each station receives a strike’s radio pulse; differences in arrival time pinpoint the source.
Multilateration
Computing a position from the differences in signal arrival times at multiple known station locations.
Triangulation
Determining a location from the intersection of directions or ranges measured from several reference points.
Detection efficiency
The fraction of actual lightning events a network successfully detects in a given area — higher where station coverage is dense.
Thunderstorm
A storm characterised by lightning and thunder, typically produced by cumulonimbus clouds, often with heavy rain, gusty wind and sometimes hail.
Nowcasting
Very short-term weather forecasting (minutes to a few hours) based on the latest observations such as radar and lightning.
Precipitation
Any form of water — rain, snow, sleet or hail — that falls from clouds to the ground; available as a weather layer in ZAPPOLLO.
Radar (weather)
A remote-sensing system that detects precipitation intensity and movement; ZAPPOLLO’s rain radar layer is provided by RainViewer.
Terminator (day/night line)
The moving boundary between the sunlit (day) and dark (night) sides of the Earth, drawn on the ZAPPOLLO globe.
Sentinel-2
An Earth-observation satellite mission whose cloudless composite imagery provides ZAPPOLLO’s satellite base map.
OpenStreetMap (OSM)
A free, collaborative world map database that provides the geographic base data for ZAPPOLLO’s map tiles.
MapLibre GL
The open-source rendering engine ZAPPOLLO uses to draw fast, interactive vector and raster maps, including the 3D globe.
Globe projection
A map view that renders the Earth as a 3D sphere rather than a flat plane, preserving its true round shape.
Mercator projection
A flat cylindrical map projection that preserves local angles but increasingly exaggerates area toward the poles; ZAPPOLLO’s flat-map mode.
Heatmap
A visualisation that uses colour intensity to show the density or frequency of events — here, concentrations of lightning strikes.
IndexedDB
A browser database that lets ZAPPOLLO store recent lightning strikes locally so the history timeline works without a server.
Progressive Web App (PWA)
A website that can be installed and used like a native app, with offline support and a home-screen icon.
Atmosphere halo
The glowing rim of scattered light rendered around the ZAPPOLLO globe to mimic the look of Earth’s atmosphere from space.
Strike rate
The number of detected lightning strikes per unit of time (per second or per minute), shown live in ZAPPOLLO as a measure of storm intensity.

Contact

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Zapollo · OpenStreetMap · OpenWeather · Blitzortung.org