New record for longest megaflash discovered, measured in southern US in April 2020. (Representative)
Geneva:
A single lightning bolt in the United States nearly two years ago cut across the sky nearly 770 kilometers, setting a new world record, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
The new record for the longest detected super-heavy rainfall, measured over the southern United States on April 29, 2020, spans 768 kilometers, or 477.2 miles, through Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
That number is equivalent to the distance between New York City and Columbus, Ohio, or between London and the German city of Hamburg, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) indicated in a statement.
That lightning zigzagged about 60 kilometers farther than the previous record, set in southern Brazil on October 31, 2018.
WMO’s committee of extreme weather and climate experts also reported a new world record for lightning duration.
A single flash of continuous development during a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18, 2020 lasted for 17.1 seconds – 0.37 seconds longer than the previous record set on March 4, 2019, also in northern Argentina.
– ‘The extremes are even bigger’ –
“These are extraordinary records from single lightning events,” said Randall Cerveny, WMO’s rapporteur on extreme weather and climate.
“Environmental extremes are vivid measurements of the power of nature, as well as scientific progress to be able to make such judgments,” he said.
The technology used to detect the length and duration of lightning flashes has improved dramatically in recent years, allowing far more records to be recorded than was once the norm.
The previous “megaflash” records, from 2018 and 2019, were the first to be verified using the new satellite lightning imaging technology, and both were more than twice as high as previous records using the new satellite lightning imaging technology. data collected from technology on the ground.
“It is likely that even larger extremes still exist and we will be able to observe them as lightning detection technology improves,” says Cerveny.
WMO highlights that new record strikes have occurred in the Great Plains in North America and the La Plata basin in South America, known as thunderstorm hotspots in the so-called Mesoscale Convection System (MCS). , creating super-massive explosions.
It highlights that the new record-setting flashes are not isolated events, but occur in large-scale and active thunderstorms, making them more dangerous.
“Lightning is a major threat that takes many lives every year,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in the statement.
“The findings highlight important public lightning safety concerns for electric clouds where lightning can travel extremely long distances.”
WMO indicates that the only lightning-safe locations are large buildings with electrical wiring and plumbing, or vehicles with fully enclosed metal heads.
The United Nations agency maintains official global records for a wide range of weather and climate-related statistics, including temperature, precipitation and wind.
All such records are archived in the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes.
The archive now includes two other extremes related to lightning.
One is the highest number of people killed by a direct lightning strike, when 21 people died in Zimbabwe in 1975 as they huddled for safety in a hut hit by bullets.
The other was because of an indirect attack, when 469 people died in Dronka, Egypt when lightning struck an oil storage tank in 1994, causing burning oil to flood the town.
