Nearly two years ago, a lightning bolt crossed the sky in the United States for nearly 770 km, a world record, according to the United Nations.
The new record for the longest detected megaflash, measured in the southern US on April 29, 2020, stretched a full 768 kilometres, or 477.2 miles, across Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says that this is roughly equivalent to the distance between New York City and Columbus, Ohio, or London and Hamburg.
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The bolt zigzagged 60 kilometres further than the previous record set on October 31, 2018, in southern Brazil.
The committee of experts for weather and climate extremes of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also reported a new world record for the lightning flash duration.
It was set by a single flash that developed continuously through a thunderstorm on June 18, 2020 in northern Argentina and Uruguay. It lasted 17.1 seconds, which was 0.37 seconds longer than the previous record on March 4, 2019.
“These are extraordinary records from single lightning flash events,” Randall Cerveny, the WMO rapporteur of weather and climate extremes, said in the statement.
“Environmental extremes are living measurements of the power of nature, as well as scientific progress in being able to make such assessments,” he said.
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Lightning flashes can now be detected for greater lengths and durations thanks to technology that has improved dramatically in recent years.
In 2018, and in 2019, new satellite lightning imaging technology verified the previous “megaflash” records. These records are more than double the previous records based on ground-based technology.
“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 WMO noted that the new record strikes occurred in the Great Plains in North America and the La Plata basin in South America, which are known hotspots for Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCS), which enable megaflashes.
These flashes were not isolated events, but occurred during active and large-scale thunderstorms, making them all the more hazardous.
“Lightning is a major hazard that claims many lives every year,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in the statement.
“The findings highlight important public lightning safety concerns for electrified clouds where flashes can travel extremely large distances.”
The WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes preserves all such weather-related records.
Currently, the archive contains two other lightning-related extremes.
There is one record for the most deaths caused by a single direct lightning strike, with 21 people dying in Zimbabwe in 1975 while huddling in the hut hit by lightning.
A second instance involved an indirect lightning strike at Dronka, Egypt, in 1994, which caused a flood of burning oil and the deaths of 469 people.
(With inputs from agencies)
