"No other location where lightning currents to tall towers are measured can correlate the measurements with high-speed footage as well as we are able to do in Johannesburg,” explains Dr Hugh Hunt, Senior Lecturer and Head of the Johannesburg Lightning Research Laboratory (JLRL) in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at Wits University. With the latest project to improve severe weather warning and Lightning Storm forecasting to protect South Africans and prevent damage, JLRL made the first measurements using the DEHNdetect device over the 2020 to 2021 Johannesburg summer thunderstorm session, high-speed filming and measuring an astounding 50 lightning currents. Lightning is measured in flashes per square kilometre per year and Johannesburg averages a high flash density of 15 flashes/km 2/year compared to Europe with an average of 3 flashes/km 2/year. The research involves installing a custom-built DEHNdetect lightning current measurement device, on the Sentech Tower in Brixton, Johannesburg and effectively turning the city hub into a lightning laboratory. To build on SA's rich history of pioneering research into lightning and as part of the Wits Centenary programme that seeks to advance society for good, the Johannesburg Lightning Research Lab (JLRL) has partnered with lightning protection company, DEHN AFRICA, and Sentech to support research into the protection of renewable energy systems from lightning. Research done by Wits University in Johannesburg found that the City of Gold is exposed to an average of 15 to 20 flashes per square kilometer per year - an exceptionally high flash density for a country’s main economic centre. SAWS's Ground Flash Density map was recorded over a full keraunic or solar cycle of 11 years, in a gridded 2km x 2km array. This updated Ground Flash Density (GFD) map published by the South African Weather Service (SAWS) in 2017 details an “auditable track record addressing reliability, accuracy and consistency”, when it comes to tracking lightning density and risk across South Africa. This is a marked increase when compared to the 6 436 claims submitted in 2020 for a total value of R79 million, with an average of R12 275 per claim. That's an average of about R15 385 per claim. Ramalingam also notes that of the 3 055 lightening damage claims submitted up until the end of April 2021, an estimated R47 million has been paid out. Thousands more are injured, and millions are spent on related insurance claims.Īccording to Rowland Ramalingam, Head of Non-Motor Claims at Santam, the company has paid out some R158 million in special perils and storm claims for the year up until April 2021. In South Africa, more than 250 people are killed annually by lightning, whereas 24 000 people worldwide die each year. Research data shows that lightning is one of the biggest weather-related killers in the world. South Africa has a number of public and private partnerships actively involved in the country's high-precision lighting detection services, by means of a completely autonomous lightning detection network (LDN). READ: Buying a Home in 2021? Everything Your Insurance Company Thinks You Know, But You Probably Don’t
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