The 829km lightning beam, recorded in October 2017 in the US, set a new world record. This information has just been announced by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on its website.
The WMO said the lightning "covers an area from eastern Texas to Kansas City, which is equivalent to the distance between Paris and Venice in Europe."
The organization estimates that if traveling by car, it will take 9 hours and by plane, it will take 90 minutes to travel the distance equivalent to the length of lightning in Texas.
Randall Cerveny, a WMO reporter on extreme weather and climate phenomena, said the organization's assessment of extreme environmental phenomena has shown significant scientific progress in monitoring, recording and evaluating such events.
Cerveny added that more serious extreme phenomena are likely to remain and humans will be able to observe them as other high-quality lightning measurements accumulate over time.
The WMO also said that advanced satellite technology has helped set a new world record by re-checking storms.
The previous record was held by a 768km long lightning, recorded on April 29, 2020, also in the US.
This record of lightning comes as extreme weather phenomena are continuously recorded around the world. Most recently, on July 26, a record temperature of 50.5 degrees Celsius was recorded in the southeastern province of Sirnak, setting a record for Europe.
The previous record high temperature was 48.8 degrees Celsius recorded on Italy's Sicily in August 2021. These figures highlight the importance of monitoring and studying extreme climate phenomena.
