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What you are seeing. GOES-19 detects lightning optically from geostationary orbit, so it sees total lightning — in-cloud as well as cloud-to-ground. Roughly three quarters of all flashes never reach the ground, so counts here run well above what a cloud-to-ground network reports for the same storm. Totals are not comparable to CG-only strike counts.
Coverage and limits. Detection efficiency is highest near the sub-satellite point and falls off toward the edge of the disk, so far-western and far-northern counts are conservative. Optical detection also degrades when a flash is buried under thick cloud top. Data are provisional, delivered without warranty, and are not a substitute for a lightning-safety warning service.
Source: NOAA GOES-19 GLM Level-2 (public domain), via NOAA Open Data on AWS. Basemap © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO.