While MetraWeather is the official supplier of lightning data to the BOM, it is a US weather company called AccuWeather that owns and maintains the Australian Lightning Network.
Also I haven’t heard great things about those “relatively cheap” AS3935 sensors, and personally haven’t had much luck using one with ESP Home.
Lightning sensors are “relatively cheap”, if you’ve got good coverage of an area you can triangulate a location.
It seems the BOM do have a view into lightning, but it’s outsourced to an NZ company, so it’s another odd choice by the BOM.
It’s even weirder than just an NZ company too:
Also I haven’t heard great things about those “relatively cheap” AS3935 sensors, and personally haven’t had much luck using one with ESP Home.