Lightning 829 km long

(Dan Tri) - A spectacular and rare natural phenomenon has just officially set a new record.

A record-breaking 829 km lightning bolt, which crossed the sky from Texas to Kansas in 2017, has been officially recorded as the longest lightning bolt ever recorded in meteorological observation history.

The information was published in a report in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society on July 31.

Lightning traveled almost through the entire large cloud from Texas to Kansas, USA (Photo: GTRI).

The record-breaking lightning strike was detected by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) GOES-16 satellite system. The satellite, launched in late 2016, is equipped with a Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) that continuously monitors the sky and records lightning phenomena with high accuracy.

Initial data on the massive thunderstorm that contained this lightning strike was recorded from the moment it occurred. However, it wasn't until a team led by Georgia Institute of Technology atmospheric scientist Michael Peterson reviewed the data that the massive electrical discharge was confirmed to be a single lightning strike of record length.

The previous record, set in 2020, recorded a 768-km lightning bolt that traveled across the states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

According to meteorologist Randy Cerveny, representative of the World Meteorological Organization and Arizona State University, this is one of the rare cases of "extremely powerful lightning" and there are still many undiscovered mysteries related to this phenomenon.

Typically, lightning forms when charged particles in the atmosphere collide and accumulate so much charge that they are released, creating a surge of millions of volts.

In most cases, lightning is no longer than 10 miles (16 km) long and travels vertically from cloud to ground. However, some special lightning strikes can travel horizontally between clouds.

Lightning recorded by the GOES-16 satellite (Photo: Science Alert).

When the cloud is large enough, this phenomenon can produce giant lightning bolts. By current standards, any lightning bolt that is longer than 100 km is classified as a “superflash”.

Measuring and identifying a powerful lightning strike is a very precise task. Scientists need to combine data from satellites and ground sensors to recreate the phenomenon in three dimensions.

This method clearly identifies the lightning as a single electric current and allows for an accurate measurement of its length. Since lightning is often partially obscured by clouds, such extreme events can be missed without modern observation technology.

It is no coincidence that both of these powerful lightning events occurred in the Great Plains (a vast area of plains in North America, located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, largely covered with grasslands, prairies, and prairies).

This is a "hot spot" for medium-sized thunderstorms. The unique climate conditions here have created an ideal environment for super lightning to form. Researchers say that if this record is broken in the future, it is very likely that it will appear in the same area.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/khoa-hoc/tia-set-dai-829-km-20250801073819978.htm