Longest lightning record: strike stretched across three US states

A bolt of lightning almost 800 kilometres in length is the new record holder for longest flash

Lightning that stretched nearly 800 kilometres across three US states broke the world record for the longest bolt.

The single flash extended 768 kilometres across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi in April 2020, the World Meteorological Organisation said on Monday. That beat the previous record of 709km set in Brazil in 2018.

Also in 2020, a single lightning flash over Uruguay and northern Argentina lasted 17.1 seconds, pipping the previous record of 16.7 seconds.

Normally lightning does not stretch much beyond 16km and lasts less than a second, said Arizona State University’s Randall Cerveny, who is the chief of records confirmation for the meteorological organisation.

“These two lightning flash records are absolutely extraordinary,” Mr Cerveny said.

Both were cloud-to-cloud, several thousand metres above the ground, so no one was in danger, he said.

These records, which are not linked to climate change, were spotted and confirmed thanks to new satellite tracking technology. Both regions are two of the few places in the world prone to the type of intense storms that can produce what are called megaflashes, Mr Cerveny said.

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