Methods and apparatuses, including computer program products, are described for predicting the potential for severe weather. Data associated with lightning activity is received by a computing device. A location, a movement speed, a movement direction, and a lightning rate of one or more cells of lightning activity are determined by the computing device based on the received data. The lightning rate is compared, by the computing device, to a threshold lightning rate. One or more geographical areas at risk are determined by the computing device based on the location, the movement speed and the movement direction of the one or more cells of lightning activity. An alert is issued by the computing device to one or more remote devices monitoring the geographical areas when the lightning exceeds a value of the threshold lightning rate.