World's longest lightning flash confirmed as new record
A 515-mile-long lightning strike that traveled from Texas to Missouri has been confirmed as the new world record.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has confirmed that a 515-mile-long "megaflash" of lightning in 2017 is a new world record.
The flash, a term for lightning inside a cloud that does not hit the ground, moved from northern Texas into Missouri and was part of a Mesoscale Convective System, a large complex of thunderstorms, on Oct. 22, 2017. This new lightning flash beats the previous record of 477 miles set by a flash on April 29, 2020.
Although the new lightning flash is older than the previous record-holders, it was only recently discovered and is one of the first megaflashes observed by NOAA's GOES-16 satellite, which has made detailed information like this available to scientists for almost 10 years.
Lightning strikes the Empire State Building above the skyline of midtown Manhattan in New York City as seen from Weehawken, New Jersey. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
Another world record the WMO maintains is the greatest duration for a lightning flash, which was 17 seconds long and occurred on June 18, 2020, over Uruguay and Argentina.
They also keep records for lightning deaths. In 1975, 21 people were killed by a single lightning strike in Zimbabwe. Indirectly, 469 people were killed in Egypt in 1994 when lightning struck several oil tanks, burning the town to the ground.
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