The meteorological service of the UN has calculated the length of the longest lightning bolt ever. Thanks to new techniques, they have determined that a bolt from 2017 had a length of 829 kilometers. That is roughly the distance between Amsterdam and Vienna.
The lightning bolt was registered in 2017 over the Great Plains in the United States. The measurement has a margin of error of approximately 8 kilometers, according to the meteorological service of the UN (WMO) in a statement.
The “megalightning” stretched from eastern Texas to Missouri. The previous record holder was also registered in that area, which is known for its spectacular thunderstorms. That lightning bolt had a length of 769 kilometers.
The thunderstorm from 2017 was one of the first to be monitored with the then-new satellites of the American weather agency NOAA. They can capture “extremely long and extremely long-lasting” lightning bolts.
The data was already studied in 2017. But the record was only discovered when the findings were recently re-examined.
Scientists were able to use improved data processing systems, says storm researcher Michael J. Peterson of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Thanks to the presence of more and improved satellites, more comparative material was now available.
WMO discovers more remarkable facts about lightning
“It is not strange that measurements of this type of weather phenomenon are only made known later, especially if there is a significant improvement in the analysis techniques over the years,” says media meteorologist Floris Lafeber of Weerplaza to NU.nl. “In short, the data was already there, but now there are tools available to better identify the data.”
In recent years, the WMO has uncovered more remarkable facts about lightning. For example, it was discovered that the longest lightning bolt ever measured was one of 17.1 seconds. It was registered over Uruguay and northern Argentina.
The deadliest strike ever was in 1975. Then 21 people were killed in Zimbabwe who were sheltering in a hut where lightning struck.