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A shocking record: Lightning bolt stretched 515 miles, crossed three states
NBC News ^ | July 31, 2025 | Denise Chow

Posted on 07/31/2025 9:46:10 AM PDT by fwdude

An enormous, 515-mile-long flash of lightning that crossed at least three states has been named the longest in recorded history in the world.

The 2017 “megaflash” stretched from eastern Texas to near Kansas City — a distance that would take at least eight hours by car or 90 minutes by commercial plane, according to the World Meteorological Organization. In comparison, the average bolt of lightning usually measures less than 10 miles, according to the National Weather Service.

(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Chit/Chat; Science; Weather; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: astronomy; catastrophism; lightning; science; weather

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Awesome mixed with scary.

Girl in a jacket

1 posted on 07/31/2025 9:46:10 AM PDT by fwdude
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To: fwdude

Is there a way to harness lightning for power? How many kilowatts or megawatts would be harnessed from a single strike? And could it be easily stored in lithium batteries?


2 posted on 07/31/2025 9:48:13 AM PDT by montag813
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To: montag813

1.21 Jigga watts last I heard.....................🙄


3 posted on 07/31/2025 9:50:29 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: fwdude

4 posted on 07/31/2025 9:51:02 AM PDT by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic... )
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To: montag813
Is there a way to harness lightning for power?

That's been my question for quite a while.

I'd also like to see a compost generator produce stored energy. Sustained temps of 160°-180° F has to be worth something.

5 posted on 07/31/2025 9:51:02 AM PDT by fwdude (Why is there a "far/radical right," but damned if they'll admit that there is a far/radical left?)
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To: montag813

I think taking high voltage, high current that would need to transfer in less than a second exceeds anything we’re remotely capable of.

Secondarily, while we think a bolt of lightening has insane amounts of energy, I’ve heard it can only power a very medium sized city for about 1 minute. Which is still a lot. But kind of puts it in persepective of just how many (completely unpredictable) bolts of lightening you’d need to capture to have any kind of efficency.


6 posted on 07/31/2025 9:59:50 AM PDT by BBQToadRibs2
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To: fwdude; montag813
> Is there a way to harness lightning for power?

Not practically. The amount of power -- volts times amperes -- is enormous, beyond any technology we have to capture and store electricity. We can play with a tiny fraction of it (like Franklin did), but not with the amount of a real lightning bolt.

It's sort of like asking, "I don't want to waste my time eating regular-sized meals the rest of my life. Is there a way that I can just get all the food I'll eat for the next 30 years and eat it all at once?"

NO, your stomach can't hold it.

7 posted on 07/31/2025 10:01:21 AM PDT by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: BBQToadRibs2
> ...exceeds anything we’re remotely capable of.

Yep, by many orders of magnitude.

Also see #7 above.

8 posted on 07/31/2025 10:05:15 AM PDT by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: fwdude

That one really could have taken someone back to the future, again...


9 posted on 07/31/2025 10:08:11 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: fwdude

It went right over my house. I remember it well.


10 posted on 07/31/2025 10:12:32 AM PDT by Sequoyah101
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To: BBQToadRibs2

The idea would be to make them predicable - create the circumstances that make a lighting bolt, and then capture it in a bottle when it sparks.


11 posted on 07/31/2025 10:14:50 AM PDT by Fido969
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To: dayglored

“We can play with a tiny fraction of it (like Franklin did)...”

Oddly, I just read an account of what Franklin did. He had a metal wire hanging off his kite and it picked up electricity, not a lightning bolt, from the storm clouds. His string conducted electricity when wet. He took precautions not to get electrocuted — used silk cloth wrapped arouond his hand for insulators and stood under a shelter.

Franklin is regarded as a polymath — a person who has tremendous learning in varied fields.

A guy in France used a metal rod and was electrocuted.


12 posted on 07/31/2025 10:21:14 AM PDT by odawg
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To: fwdude
Amazing. It looks to me that it was not just a single bolt. The bolt triggered other bolts in adjacent clouds and that kept triggering other bolts in a long chain reaction. The conditions had to have been right for that initiation process to continue so far.

Groks says the flash lasted almost eight seconds!

13 posted on 07/31/2025 10:25:23 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: fwdude
The extreme conditions that spawn them are a reminder of how powerful and dangerous lightning storms can be. In the U.S., lightning kills roughly 20 people each year and injures hundreds more, according to the weather service.

I've known two people who have been struck by lightning. One was a boy in our Boy Scout troop and the other was woman who has been hit twice by lightning. They both told me it really hurts.

14 posted on 07/31/2025 10:35:31 AM PDT by gitmo (If your theology doesn’t become your biography, what good is it?)
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To: montag813

Sure, get a kite, hang a key off of it and connect it to a solar panal and a wind turbine.


15 posted on 07/31/2025 10:42:13 AM PDT by Cold Heart (BP S GW)
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To: fwdude

Everything’s bigger in TEXAS!


16 posted on 07/31/2025 11:17:13 AM PDT by rhinohunter (I don’t know if God is a Republican, but I am metaphysically certain that satan is a democrat)
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To: fwdude
Ludicrous Bolt
17 posted on 07/31/2025 11:23:00 AM PDT by griffin (When you have to shoot, SHOOT; don't talk. -Tuco)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Good post wonder how many TV’s gave up their life on that amped up deal.


18 posted on 07/31/2025 11:43:18 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: gitmo

Wow, you make up for the zero people I’ve known hit by lightning.

I was camping with a girlfriend in the Wind River Mountains many decades ago. We were on a bald rock outcrop watching the lighting hit the bare mountain rock across the lake. I kept waiting for the tingling sensation and hair standing up on end, but it neve happened. But I’ve never been more afraid of getting struck than that day.


19 posted on 07/31/2025 11:48:38 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: fwdude

I wonder what it is near KC that would generate such a charge...

[tin hat off]


20 posted on 07/31/2025 12:35:47 PM PDT by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -')
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