Lightning Rips Through Midwest In Dramatic Time Lapse From Space

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Weather researchers released a spectacular time-lapse video of a lightning storm rolling across the middle of the country from its new GOES-17 satellite Tuesday.

The GOES-17 was launched into space on March 1st and just recently deployed its Geostationary Lightning Mapper capabilities that were designed in the Silicon Valley.

The GLM Is the first set of instruments to continuously track lighting from space, giving earlier warning for severe storms.

GOES-17 has the ability can collect three times more data at four times image resolution, and scan the planet five times faster than previous probes.

It covers the western regions of the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii and the Pacific Ocean.