the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 30 Jun 2026
First Year of Meteosat Third Generation Lightning Imager Observations
Abstract. The MTG-LI System is the first European space-based geostationary mission devoted to the monitoring and characterization of lightning activity over hemispheric scales. The present paper provides the first comprehensive summary of MTG-LI data during its first year of continuous observations. From July 2024 to June 2025, the instrument detected a total of 595×106 flashes within its field-of-view, encompassing Europe, Africa, and part of the Atlantic Ocean, South America, middle East and Indian Ocean. The highest observed lightning flash density of 189 flashes km−2 y−1 was found in the east of The Democratic Republic of the Congo. The MTG-LI is capable of capturing both global and local lightning features. In addition, the instrument’s high sensitivity to intra-cloud lightning activity translates into flash density values notably higher than ground-based lightning statistics. These results demonstrate that the MTG-LI is an excellent instrument for the continuous monitoring of total lightning activity across its entire field of view on both operational and climatological scales.
Competing interests: At least one of the (co-)authors serves as editor for the special issue to which this paper belongs.
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Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-3386', Martin Fullekrug, 09 Jul 2026
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3386/egusphere-2026-3386-RC1-supplement.pdfCitation: https://doi.org/
10.5194/egusphere-2026-3386-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-3386', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Jul 2026
I find the manuscript very well written and scientifcally solid and extremely relevant regarding the usage of MTG-LI data in future studies. I have only some minor comments and some typo-related points, which the authors can take onboard if desired. The only critic I have is that the authors do not to include much about the limitations of MTG-LI: especially, LI does not classify flashes to cloud-to-ground vs. intracloud, which poses limitations for the data usage in applications/purposes where CG data is needed (see also my comment #7).
1. Line (L) 22: You say "Global systems miss most of the intra-cloud lightning ..." --> I know this is the case, but could you provide a citation for this as you provide for the continental systems in the next sentence? Also, in the next sentence you say "... detecting a fraction of IC...": can you say what this fraction is? In our ground-based LLS with the current settings the percentage of IC-labeled flashes in the data is about three times the amount of CG flashes, which sounds more than just a fraction.
2. L27: Note, that only GEO-based sensors provide consistent, uniform and continuous coverage. Maybe to revise: "Space-based geostationary lightning sensors..."?
3. L59: "...during from..." --> should this be just "...from..."?
4. L85: "...available AT the link..."
5. L86: SEVIRI jumps up here the first time, should all readers know what this is?
6. L127: "...Italy still..." --> I don't get this "still" here? Could you just say "... in the northeast of Italy is 44 flashes..."?
7. L223: "This is significantly higher than 6-8 flashes ..." --> The comparison is not fare at all, as to my understanding the EUCLID-based values refer only to CG flashes. To turn this around, with MTG-LI data you cannot actually get the CG flash density values at all, which you should definitely mention somewhere; after all, CG density is the standard parameter e.g. in lightning safety/protection standards.
8. L250: convention --> convection
9. L308: "...notably exceeded ground-based observations." --> See comment #7. This paragraph would be a good place to include something about the limitations of MTG-LI compared to ground-based systems.
Other comments:
O1: It would have been interesting if you had shown also the spatial distribution of thunderstorm days based on LI data. This would have (likely) showed that in some regions a lot of lightning is accumulated only within few days, while e.g. in Africa the high counts are (likely) due to modest lightning over plenty of days. Also, WMO is to my understanding interested on th.days.
O2: To me one of the main benefits at least for the met.services under the FOV is that MTG-LI makes it possible to look at the same ~homogeneous data among different institutes.Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-3386-RC2
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