US Lightning Flash Was Longest On Record At 515 Miles
(Thursday July 31, 2025 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
from the record-breaking dept.)
- Reference: 0178528272
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/07/31/2247247/us-lightning-flash-was-longest-on-record-at-515-miles
- Source link:
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:
> A 515-mile (829km) lightning flash has [1]set a new record as the longest ever identified . The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed the new world record for the flash registered on October 22, 2017, over the Great Plains in the US. It stretched from east Texas to near Kansas City, Missouri, roughly the distance between Paris and Venice. The [2]previous record of 768km was also recorded in the Great Plains, a hotspot for severe thunderstorms, on April 29, 2020.
>
> Since 2016, scientific advances in space-based mapping have allowed for lightning flashes to be measured over a broader space, allowing these long flashes to be recorded. This event was one of the first flashes to be documented using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's latest model of orbital satellite, known as a geostationary operational environmental satellite. [...] The advances in technology have also allowed for the recording of the greatest duration for a single lightning flash. The record is a flash that lasted 17.1 seconds during a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18, 2020.
The findings have been [3]published in the journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society .
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/31/us-lightning-flash-longest-on-record-515-miles
[2] https://www.livescience.com/longest-lightning-bolt-recorded
[3] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/aop/BAMS-D-25-0037.1/BAMS-D-25-0037.1.xml
> A 515-mile (829km) lightning flash has [1]set a new record as the longest ever identified . The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed the new world record for the flash registered on October 22, 2017, over the Great Plains in the US. It stretched from east Texas to near Kansas City, Missouri, roughly the distance between Paris and Venice. The [2]previous record of 768km was also recorded in the Great Plains, a hotspot for severe thunderstorms, on April 29, 2020.
>
> Since 2016, scientific advances in space-based mapping have allowed for lightning flashes to be measured over a broader space, allowing these long flashes to be recorded. This event was one of the first flashes to be documented using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's latest model of orbital satellite, known as a geostationary operational environmental satellite. [...] The advances in technology have also allowed for the recording of the greatest duration for a single lightning flash. The record is a flash that lasted 17.1 seconds during a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18, 2020.
The findings have been [3]published in the journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society .
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/31/us-lightning-flash-longest-on-record-515-miles
[2] https://www.livescience.com/longest-lightning-bolt-recorded
[3] https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/aop/BAMS-D-25-0037.1/BAMS-D-25-0037.1.xml
If we deny it, then it won't happen. (Score:2)
by ndsurvivor ( 891239 )
Does that apply in this case?
Very cool. Defunding when? (Score:2)
Personally, I think it's cool we have some organization monitoring the weather and atmospheric phenomena like this.
Honest question: When are they going to be defunded by the current administration? Without looking, I'll bet they're on the chopping block.