US lightning flash was longest on record at 515 miles, scientists say | US weather
A 515 mile (829 km) Flash Lightning has set a new record like the longest ever identified.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has confirmed the new world record for the flash recorded on October 22, 2017 on the main plains in the United States. He extended from eastern Texas to near Kansas City, Missouri, roughly the distance between Paris and Venice.
The previous 768 km record was also recorded in Large Plains, a hotspot for severe thunderstorms on April 29, 2020.
Since 2016, the scientific progress of space cartography have made it possible to measure lighting on a wider space, which makes it possible to record these long flashes.
This event was one of the first flashes to be documented using the latest orbital satellite model in the ocean and atmospheric administration, known as the geostationary operational environmental satellite.
Michael J Peterson, the principal author and member of the SEVERRE STORMS RESEArch Center assessment committee of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said: “The extremes of what lightning is capable is difficult to study because it pushes the limits of what we can observe practically.
Before using orbital satellites to record the duration and length of lightning, the data was collected by ground sensors. Many scientists have recognized that there were limits to the duration and length of lightning that they could record with these ground sensors.
Technological progress has also made it possible to register the greatest duration for a single lightning flash. The record is a flash which lasted 17.1 seconds during a thunderstorm on Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18, 2020.
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Professor Randall Cerveny, an extreme time and climate report, said: “[The] The daily implications of these events are that lightning can browse fairly long distances from the parent storm. For this reason, people must limit their outdoor activities during thunderbolt thunderstorms. »»
The WMO recommends that people taken in a lightning storm are preparing in substantial buildings with wiring and plumbing, or a fully closed metal vehicle.
