The primary objective of this study is to investigate if the 5 NM safety radius for lightning warnings can be reduced while maintaining a desired level of safety. The research uses processed Lightning Detection and Ranging (LDAR) data to map the movement of preexisting lightning storms using ellipses which are updated with every lightning flash. A systematic recording ensues for the distance from the ellipse boundary of each flash occurring outside the ellipse. All of those exterior flash distances are then used to find the best-fit distribution from which the stand-off distance for the desired level of safety can be calculated. The distances from the edge of the ellipse are fit to a Weibull distribution and a new warning distance of 4 NM is selected as the most appropriate distance to balance safety and increase productivity. The 4 NM radius is tested with a resulting failure rate of .277 , with a savings of 22.5 8-hour man days a year for the months of May through September.
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