In 2019, the 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) funded a study for Scientific Lightning Solutions, LLC (SLS) of Titusville, FL to evaluate the detection efficiency (DE) of the Mesoscale Eastern Range Lightning Information Network (MERLIN) for lightning strikes to tall structures and/or large catenary wire lightning protection systems.

The primary goal of the current study is to determine if the apparent MERLIN DE difference for strokes attaching to tall structures versus strikes to nearby ground is statistically significant, and if so, provide the resultant data to Vaisala (the MERLIN vendor) so that MERLIN can be tuned to improve DE for strokes to tall structures without degrading the overall performance of the system.