A lightening flash that was recognized as a new world record on Thursday, 515 miles from Eastern Texas to Canus City, Missouri.
Flash-one “megaflash,” or a single continuous long horizontal flash dubbed that can begin hundreds of cloud-to-piece strikes-on October 22, 2017. A research report Published in the bulletin of the US Meteorological Society. While the storm of that day was first analyzed by scientists, the new satellite technique recently documented the megaflash over 500 miles.
The previous world record recognized by the World Meteorological Organization was a megaflash on April 29, 2020, which was 477 miles in the southern United States and 477 miles in the Gulf of Mexico, said researchers.
While 2017 megaflash can be the longest in horizontal distances, it was not the longest period. Researchers estimated that it lasted for more than 7 seconds. In June 2020, Argentina and Uruguay had the current WMO-recognized record for the longest period and about 17 seconds.
Researchers hope that the technology that identified the 2017 megaflash will help them evaluate more storms.
“We are excited to see what kind of electricity comes from this new work, and especially technology improves and we are able to achieve other parts of the world, then we will be able to expand the final vision of providing global coverage. lightning“Michael Peterson said, the main writer of the report and a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
Randel Serevani of the weather and climate extremes for WMO said the new record is likely to be recognized.
“It is likely that even more extremes are still present, and that we will be able to see them as additional high quality power measures,” he said in a statement.
