Lightning Storm over Kansas City, Mo.
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A 515 -mile flash from Texas to Missouri in 2017 was named the world’s largest electric bolt thanks to US satellite images shifting a past record, as climate change attracts more extreme weather conditions.
A review of a national ocean and atmospheric administration The image by the GOES-16 satellite recently revealed that a single lightning bolt on October 22, 2017 was actually about 38 miles more than a previous record.
Until now, the longest strike Lightning was thought to happen on April 29, 2020 and arrived from Texas in Louisiana and Mississippi, with average 477 miles.
However, Noaa issued a statement August 5 that 2017 Lightning Bolt was actually the new record holder. The discovery came when looking through the 2017 storm in previous satellite images.
Image from the Noaa-16 Complex satellite on October 22, 2017 in the US which produced a new world record for the biggest Lightning Bolt.
Noaa/Cooperative Research Institute in the atmosphere
World Meteorological Organization was created The new milestone It was noted that both the 2017 and the 2020 giant lighting appeared in a well -known “hotspot storm” in the United States region. Both lightning bursts were declared “Megaflashes” because they were “extremely long -lasting/distance from lightning”.
WMO said this new record bolt was produced as part of a large storm complex.
“It expands from East Texas to Kansas City – equivalent to the distance between Paris and Venice in Europe, it would take a car about eight to nine hours and a commercial plane at least 90 minutes to cover this distance,” the WMO statement said.
Professor Randall Cerveny, in weather and at the end of the WMO climate, said developments in science and technology make it possible to evaluate extreme weather conditions such as lightning distance.
“This new record clearly demonstrates the incredible power of the natural environment,” Cerveny said. “It is likely that there are still greater ends and that we will be able to observe them as additional high quality lightning measurements to accumulate over time.”
Part of the geostatic functional environmental satellite program, the same NOAA GOES-16 satellite had recorded images of both Megaflashes from 2017 and 2020.
Noaa’s satellite satellite begins in space.
Noaa & Nasa
Goes-16 began in 2016 in a geostatic track as the First satellite of four in Row goes-rhovering in fixed positions on the surface of the Earth. The final satellite in this series began in June 2024.
Extreme weather conditions
The United States is seeing about 25 million lightning cloud-to-brakes a year, according to NOAA. The US government through NOAA and NASA is watching and studying lightning to better understand and predict the weather.
Lighting is linked to 24,000 deaths, 240,000 injuries, fires and millions of dollars in real estate damage annually, says NASA.
NOAA’s National Environmental Information Centers reported that the UN events last year consisted of 17 severe thunderstorms (tornadoes, high wind, hailuts), 5 tropical cyclones and 2 winter cool waves, fire and 1 drought. “This follows in 2023 in which there was a record of 28 separate dollars. Site notes.
The events of natural disasters of billions of dollars from 1980 to 2024 of billions of dollars.
Noaa/National Environmental Information Centers
More extreme weather conditions, higher temperatures and other changing climate conditions are expected to lead to increasingly strong thunderstorms. NCEI said in January that costs associated with natural disasters in the US this year may increase by several billions of dollars compared to 2024.
