A lightning bolt stretching 515 miles (829 km) has set a new world record for the longest ever recorded. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed the record-breaking flash, which occurred on October 22, 2017, over the U.S. Great Plains. The massive bolt stretched from eastern Texas to near Kansas City, Missouri—roughly the distance between Paris and Venice.
The previous record of 768 km was also set in the Great Plains, a hotspot for severe thunderstorms, on April 29, 2020.
Since 2016, advances in satellite mapping technology have allowed scientists to measure lightning flashes over much larger areas, making it possible to detect these enormous bolts. This record-breaking flash was one of the first documented using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) latest geostationary weather satellite.
Michael J. Peterson, lead author and researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Severe Storms Research Center, said: “Studying the extremes of lightning is challenging because it pushes the limits of what we can observe. The ability to continuously monitor lightning from geostationary orbit was a major breakthrough.”
Before satellites, lightning data was collected using ground-based sensors, which had limitations in tracking the full scale of massive lightning events.
The same technological advances also enabled the recording of the longest-lasting lightning flash—a 17.1-second bolt during a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18, 2020.
Professor Randall Cerveny, a WMO expert on weather extremes, warned: “These events show that lightning can travel far from its parent storm. People should limit outdoor activities when thunderstorms are producing lightning.”
The WMO advises seeking shelter in sturdy buildings with wiring and plumbing or inside fully enclosed metal-topped vehicles during lightning storms.
