Posted on 02/01/2022 8:42:02 AM PST by devane617
A bolt of lightning that stretched nearly 500 miles across three U.S. states is the new world record holder for longest flash.
The single flash extended 477.2 miles (768 kilometers) across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi in April 2020, the World Meteorological Organization said Monday. That beat the old record set in 2018 in Brazil of 440.6 miles (709 kilometers).
Also in 2020, a single lightning flash over Uruguay and northern Argentina lasted 17.1 seconds, nipping the old time record of 16.7 seconds.
Normally lightning doesn’t stretch farther than 10 miles and lasts less than a second, said Arizona State University’s Randall Cerveny, who is the chief of records confirmation for the meteorological organization.
“These two lightning flash records are absolutely extraordinary,” Cerveny said in an email.
Both were cloud-to-cloud, several thousand feet above the ground, so no one was in danger, he said.
These records, which are not linked to climate change, were spotted and confirmed thanks to new satellite tracking technology. Both regions are two of the few places in the world prone to the type of intense storms that can produce what are called “megaflashes, ” Cerveny said.
"These records, which are not linked to climate change,..."
Smiled when he or she wrote it, but frowned when the editor delivered the pink slip shortly thereafter.
“These records, which are not linked to climate change”
Phew!
That’s nothing compared to how long the faux president broke wind according to Camilla.
Bush’s Fault.
What about aircraft?........................
Awesome. The power of nature is truly humbling. Ever been through an earthquake? It makes you feel very .... insignificant.
LOL!
I remember years ago out in the Arizona wastelands seeing a horizontal lightning bolt. Seemed like it went on for miles. Impressive..
Too bad that wasn’t recorded from space.
Aircraft get struck by lightning all the time, usually with little to no damage.
It would be MY luck if I was on it , it would explode like a fireworks....................
Did Zeus apply with Guinness before his attempt?
Somewhere I heard that the Canadian Truckers won’t get the ‘longest parade’ award because they didn’t register with Guiness before the event.
God be mad now.
Camilla: “Did you just break wind before me?”
Biden: “I didn’t know it was your turn”
Back in the 70s I was on an airline flight at, and then after, sunset. I was flying out of Missouri headed to Atlanta. We were in clear air space but parallel to our path stretching from Memphis to Atlanta was a monster storm front. Training west to east it had 800 miles of giant thunderstorms with the most intense lightning I ever saw and I’ve been on close to a thousand flights. Cloud-to-cloud was so intense the depths of each thunderhead glowed orange and magenta.
For those who think God couldn’t hit you from 3 states over..
I was working in a weather center when this came in on the NOAA teletype. There is actually more to the story than reported in the article. That lawyer has just gotten a drug cartel enforcer off a triple murder charge Scott free.
LOL :)
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