The bolt, which lit up the night sky on April 29, 2020, ran across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. It measured a total of 477.2 miles (768 km) long, easily surpassing the threshold to be considered a megaflash, which is a minimum of 62 miles (100 km) long. Using satellite technology, the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Committee on Weather and Climate Extremes certified Tuesday that the bolt broke the world record for the longest documented flash by length. The record was previously held by a bolt of lightning that was 440.6 miles (709 km) and recorded in Brazil in 2018.
“Most lightning flashes in storms travel only a few miles or so,” WMO rapporteur of Weather and Climate Extremes Randall Cerveny told CNN. “A megaflash can extend for hundreds of miles!”
WMO has verified 2 new world records for a⚡️lightning #megaflash
Longest distance single flash of 768 km (477.2 miles) across southern #USA – 60 kilometres MORE than old record
Greatest duration of 17.102 seconds over #Uruguay and northern #Argentina https://t.co/6AzyzTgMIO pic.twitter.com/VqUgxEDHB2— World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) February 1, 2022
Another bolt set a second record just a couple months later: a flash of lightning from June 18, 2020 lasted 17.1 seconds as it blazed over Uruguay and northern Argentina. The world record previously belonged to a bolt that lasted 16.7 seconds and also flashed above Argentina in March 2019. (Such a record becomes even more impressive when you remember lightning rarely lasts longer than a second.)
Both recent record-setters took place in areas “notorious” for the type of extreme weather events that produce megaflashes, according to the WMO. These storms are called Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) thunderstorms, and they occur in hotspots such as the Great Plains in North America and the La Plata basin in South America, where these two did.
The WMO predicts it will be able to record and analyze more complex natural phenomena with the continuing development of space-based mapping technology, such as the Geostationary Lightning Mappers (GLMs) on the R-series Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-16 and 17). With similar orbiting instruments introduced by Europe and China, scientists will be able to achieve near-global coverage of the intracloud and cloud-to-ground flashes that make up total lightning.
“Lightning is a major hazard that claims many lives every year,” said WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas in the organization’s statement. “The findings highlight important public lightning safety concerns for electrified clouds where flashes can travel extremely large distances.”
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