A thunderstorm seen from the GOES-16 satellite on April 29, 2020. One lightning flash within this complex has been found to be the longest on record. Image: NOAA
A lightning bolt extending across three states in the United States has set a world record for the longest flash, the UN World Meteorological Organisation, said on Monday.
The April 29, 2020, lightning reached 768 km across the southern US states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
A previous record set in Brazil in 2018 clocked a lightning bolt at 709 km long.
Another lightning-related record was also set in 2020 in Uruguay and northern Argentina. A lightning flash in the two Latin American nations lasted 17.1 seconds, eclipsing the old record of 16.7 seconds.
The chief of records confirmation at the World Meteorological Organisation, Randall Cerveny of Arizona State University, said, “These are extraordinary records from single lightning flash events.” He also lauded the scientific progress on display “to make such assessments.”
Cerveny described the lightning bolts as cloud-to-cloud and said they occurred several thousands of feet in the air, imperiling no one.
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Nonetheless, the head of the World Meteorological Organisation, Petteri Taalas, said, “The findings highlight important public lightning safety concerns for electrified clouds where flashes can travel extremely large distances.”
The records were detected using new satellite tracking technology. The technology used to detect the length and duration of lightning flashes has improved dramatically in recent years, helping explain records far greater than what was the norm when measuring capabilities were more limited.
In a statement, Cerveny said, “It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as lightning detection technology improves.”
Cerveny said the two regions where these extraordinary bolts were detected are among the few places on earth known to experience intense storms known as Mesoscale Convective System thunderstorms, or megaflashes.
This article was first published by DW and has been republished here with permission.