The lightning bolt was 829 km long.

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

A lightning strike with a record-breaking length of 829 km, stretching across the sky from Texas to Kansas (USA) in 2017, has been officially recognized as the longest lightning strike ever recorded in meteorological history.

This information was published in a report in the American Meteorological Society's newsletter on July 31st.

The lightning bolt traveled almost entirely through the large cloud formation stretching from Texas to Kansas, USA (Photo: GTRI).

This record-breaking lightning strike was detected thanks to the GOES-16 satellite system of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The satellite, launched in late 2016, is equipped with a geostationary lightning mapping (GLM) instrument capable of continuously monitoring the sky and recording lightning phenomena with high accuracy.

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

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

According to meteorologist Randy Cerveny, representing the World Meteorological Organization and Arizona State University, this is one of the rare instances of an "extremely powerful lightning strike," and many mysteries surrounding this phenomenon remain undiscovered.

Typically, lightning forms when charged particles in the atmosphere collide and accumulate such a large electrical charge that they must release it, creating a surge of millions of volts.

In most cases, lightning strikes are no longer than 16 km long and travel vertically from the cloud to the ground. However, some exceptional lightning strikes can propagate horizontally between clouds.

The lightning strike was captured by the GOES-16 satellite (Image: Science Alert).

When the cloud is large enough, this phenomenon can generate massive lightning strikes. According to current standards, any lightning strike exceeding 100 km in length is classified as a "super lightning."

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

This method helps to clearly identify a lightning strike as a single electrical current and allows for accurate measurement of its length. Because lightning is often partially obscured by clouds, such extreme phenomena could be missed without modern observation technology.

It is no coincidence that both of these extremely powerful lightning phenomena occurred in the Great Plains (a vast plain in North America, located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, largely covered by grasslands, prairies, and meadows).

This area is a "hotspot" for medium-sized thunderstorms. The unique climatic conditions here create an ideal environment for super lightning to form. Researchers believe that if this record is broken in the future, it is very likely to occur in the same area.

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