World record lightning measuring 768 kms struck southern US in 2020, confirms UN's WMO

The United Nations's specialised weather agency has confirmed that two lightning strikes in 2020 broke world records in both the fields of length and duration. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has set the new records for supposed 'megaflashes' of lightning in ‘notorious’ regions in North and South America, as per a UN report.   

On Tuesday, the WMO's Committee on Weather and Climate Extremes acknowledged a single 'Megaflash' which has covered a horizontal distance of over 768 km or (477.2 miles) on April 29, 2020, in the southern United States. As per the report, the new record for the longest lightning strike spans regions of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi in the US.  

In a press release, WMO stated, “This is equivalent to the distance between New York City and Columbus Ohio in the United States or between London and the German city of Hamburg”, UN reported. 

Apart from this, the other world record was for the longest duration of a single lightning bolt which was over 17 seconds from the flash. The longest duration ‘Megaflash’ occurred on June 18, 2020, across Uruguay as well as northern Argentina during a rainstorm. 

According to the UN report, the current record for the longest observed megaflash range is 60 kilometres longer than the earlier record, which was set on October 31, 2018, spanning portions of southern Brazil with a distance of over 709 km. Furthermore, WHO stated that both the prior and new records utilised the similar maximum great circle distance technique to determine flash extent. Maximum great circle distance refers to the shortest measured distance between two locations on a sphere. 

Experts remark on the two new world record lightning strikes

Professor Randall Cerveny, a rapporteur of Weather and Climate Extremes for the WMO, which validated the milestones, remarked, "These are extraordinary records from single lightning-flash events," UN reported. While talking about the new records, the head of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas, said that lightning is considered to be a serious threat that kills many people every year. “The findings highlight important public lightning safety concerns for electrified clouds where flashes can travel extremely large distances”, he added.  

Furthermore, Ron Holle, a renowned lighting expert and committee member, noted that these extraordinarily huge and long-duration lightning strikes were not isolated but occurred amid intense thunderstorms.  

The two new world record lightning strikes happened in hotspots which are known as Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) thunderstorms, which have features where spectacular megaflashes occur, like in the Great Plains in North America and the La Plata basin in South America. 

(Image: Unsplash/ Twitter@WMO)