Spectacular And Really Cool Lightning Records Set In Gulf Of Mexico And South America

A radar image from April 29, 2020 from Accuweather  shows a
large thunderstorm complex in the northwestern Gulf of 
Mexico. That storm produced a lightning bolt that was 477
miles long, a new world record. 

 We apparently have a new weather term to deal with. A megaflash.

This involves lightning, and a couple new records set. It's all been something just confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization, reports Accuweather and other news organizations.  

A megaflash is a very, very long bolt of lightning.  The new record was a lightning bolt - a megaflash, that on April 29, 2020 extended from Texas, through part of the Gulf of Mexico to over Louisiana and Mississippi, covering a distance of 477 miles. 

That's roughly the distance between Burlington, Vermont and Baltimore, Maryland. 

The storm that caused this wild lightning strike was quite powerful.

Before moving off the Texas coast and creating the lightning bolt, the storm caused extensive wind and hail damage in and near Houston. 

The WMO also confirmed another record, this one involving a long lasting lightning bolt. In June, 2020 a lightning bolt lasted 17 seconds in a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina, NPR reports.  

Adds NPR: "Prior to these records, a megaflash in Brazil held the record for the longest flash by distance, at about 441 miles. A 16.73 second megaflash in Argentina, recorded in March, 2019, held the record for the longest duration." 

We will almost certainly see more records, even more spectacular than the two I just described, because of advances in measuring technology.

Until relatively recently, ground based lightning mapping networks measured the size and duration of lightning bolts, but that method surely missed some spectacular lightning events. 

As NPR explains, researchers are now using space-based technology to measure megaflashes.  The space based technology is really doing a bang up job of accurately gauging lightning intensity and size.

Since the space technology is relatively new, we're probably going to see lightning bolts even more wild than the one's I've just described here. We'll keep an eye out for that!