World Meteorological Organization certifies Megaflash lightning extremes

A World Meteorological Organization (WMO) committee of experts has established two new world records for the longest reported distance and the longest reported duration for a single lightning flash in, respectively, Brazil and Argentina.

Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2020

Key-Points

The new records for “megaflashes”, verified with new satellite lightning imagery technology, more than double the previous values measured in the United States of America and France.

The world’s greatest extent for a single lightning flash is a single flash that covered a horizontal distance of 709 ± 8 km (440.6 ± 5 mi) across parts of southern Brazil on 31 October 2018.   This is equivalent to the distance between Boston and Washington DC in the United States of America or between London and the border of Switzerland near Basel.

The greatest duration for a single lightning flash is 16.73 seconds from a flash that developed continuously over northern Argentina on 4 March 2019.

A single Lightning flash stretched more than 700 kilometres across Brazil on October 31 last year has created a new world record for the longest reported distance of lightning. This was equivalent to the distance between Boston and Washington in the US, or between London and Basel in Switzerland.

A lightning flash that developed continuously over northern Argentina on March 4, 2019 lasted a whopping 16.73 seconds creating new world record for the longest reported duration of lightning.

The new records for extreme lightning bursts, or ‘megaflashes’, during 2019, are more than double the size and duration of the previous record flashes.

The new record-breaking strikes were released on the occasion of International Lightning Safety Day on June 28.