Now that’s a BIG shock! World’s longest lightning bolt lasted for 8.5 seconds and stretched more than 477 MILES across the skies over Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi – 37 miles longer than the previous record
World’s longest lightning bolt stretched more than 477 miles across skies of US
Megaflash stretched across Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas on April 29, 2020
World Meteorological Organization has now confirmed it as a new world record
Lightning bolt zig-zagged some 37 miles further than previous record in Brazil
A massive bolt of lightning that stretched almost 500 miles across three US states has set a new world record for the longest ‘megaflash’ ever recorded.
It started close to the city of Wiggins in Mississippi at 09:32 ET on April 29, 2020 and cut across the skies of Louisiana and Texas towards Freeport on the Gulf of Mexico, lasting a total of eight-and-a-half seconds.
The lightning bolt zig-zagged for 477.2 miles (768 km) — equivalent to the distance between London and the German city of Hamburg, experts at the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.
It beat the previous record, which was set in Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil on October 31, 2018, by some 37 miles (60km).
The WMO’s committee of experts on weather and climate extremes also reported a new world record for the duration of a lightning flash.
Meanwhile, a single bolt that developed continuously through a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18, 2020 lasted for 17.1 seconds — 0.37 seconds longer than the previous record set on March 4, 2019, also in Argentina.
‘These are extraordinary records from single lightning flash events,’ said Randall Cerveny, the WMO rapporteur of weather and climate extremes.
‘Environmental extremes are living measurements of the power of nature, as well as scientific progress in being able to make such assessments.’
The technology used to detect the length and duration of lightning flashes has improved dramatically in recent years, enabling records far greater than what was once the norm.
The previous ‘megaflash’ records, from 2018 and 2019, were the first verified with new satellite lightning imagery technology and were both more than double the records that preceded them using data collected from 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,’ said Cerveny, of Arizona State University.
The WMO highlighted that the new record strikes happened in the Great Plains in North America and the La Plata basin in South America, known as hotspots for so-called Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) thunderstorms, which enable megaflashes.
It stressed that the lightning bolts that set the new records were not isolated events, but happened during active and large-scale thunderstorms, making them all the more dangerous.
‘Lightning is a major hazard that claims many lives every year,’ WMO chief Petteri Taalas said.
‘The findings highlight important public lightning safety concerns for electrified clouds where flashes can travel extremely large distances.’
WMO pointed out that the only lightning-safe locations are big buildings with wiring and plumbing, or fully enclosed, metal-topped vehicles.
The UN agency maintains official global records for a range of weather and climate-related statistics, including temperature, rainfall and wind.
These records are stored in the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes, which currently includes two other lightning-related extremes.
One is for the most people killed by a single direct strike of lightning, when 21 people died in Zimbabwe in 1975 as they huddled for safety in a hut that was hit.
The other is for an indirect strike, when 469 people died in Dronka, Egypt when lightning struck a set of oil tanks in 1994, causing burning oil to flood the town.
Source: daily mail
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Now that’s a BIG shock! World’s longest lightning bolt lasted for 8.5 seconds and stretched more than 477 MILES across the skies over Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi – 37 miles longer than the previous record