A lightning "megaflash" that stretched nearly 500 miles across three U.S. states is setting records as the longest lightning bolt known to man.
The single flash extended 477.2 miles across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi on April 29, 2020, the World Meteorological Organization said Monday. That's equal to the distance between New York City and Columbus, Ohio, or the same distance between London and the German city of Hamburg.
The megaflash was produced by a storm system that originated over the Great Plains and moved southward before migrating offshore over the Gulf of Mexico, the WMO said. The megaflash occurred after the storm had moved offshore, and it extended along the Gulf Coast between Texas and Mississippi.
The megaflash breaks the old world record of 440.6 miles, set in October 2018 in southern Brazil, by almost 37 miles. Images of the lightning bolt were captured by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites and shared by the WMO.
The longest single lightning flash was also recorded in 2020. The megaflash lasted for 17.1 seconds, lighting up the sky over Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18.
The megaflash barely broke the old record of 16.7 seconds, set in March 2019 in northern Argentina.
Both records were set in locations known as notorious hotspots for thunderstorms, the Great Plains in North America and the La Plata basin in South America.
"These are extraordinary records from single lightning flash events," Professor Randall Cerveny, rapporteur of Weather and Climate Extremes for the WMO, said in a statement. "Environmental extremes are living measurements of the power of nature, as well as scientific progress in being able to make such assessments. It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as lightning detection technology improves."
Both megaflashes were cloud-to-cloud, so no one was in danger in either incident.
The findings were published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
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