Records for the longest lightning bolt, both in distance and duration, have been established (Representation)
The United Nations:
A single lightning bolt traveled more than 700 kilometers across Brazil last year – equivalent to the distance between Boston and Washington DC – created a new world record for the longest lightning distance reported, the weather agency said. of ONU.
A committee of experts from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that two new world records for the longest distance reported and the longest duration reported for a single flash were set in Brazil and Argentina.
New records for extreme lightning bursts, or “ mega-flashes ”, in 2019 are more than double the size and duration of previous flashes.
A lightning bolt that developed continuously over northern Argentina on March 4, 2019 lasted 16.73 seconds.
A second flash spanned over 700 kilometers (400 miles) in southern Brazil on October 31 of last year. This is equivalent to the distance between Boston and Washington in the United States, or between London and Basel in Switzerland.
The previous megaflash distance record was 321 km (199.5 miles) in June 2007 in the US state of Oklahoma, and the previous record for continuous duration was 7.74 seconds, reached in August 2012 in the south from France.
The new record strikes, captured by the American Geophysical Union before International Day of Lightning Safety on June 28, were recorded by equipment on board operational geostationary environment satellites and their counterparts in European orbit and from China.
These documents were described as extraordinary by Professor Randall Cerveny, chief rapporteur for extreme weather and climate conditions for WMO.
“Environmental extremes are living measures of what nature can do, as well as scientific progress to be able to make such assessments,” he said.
“It is likely that even larger extremes still exist and that we can observe them as lightning detection technology improves.”
Cerveny said the technology could help scientists better understand the whole science of lightning and potentially save lives: “This will provide valuable information for setting limits on the scale of lightning – including megaflashes – for them. engineering, safety and scientific concerns. “
WMO reiterated the dangers of lightning and the many lives it causes each year. The lightning strikes resulted in significant loss of life.
In 1975, 21 people in Zimbabwe were killed when a single lightning bolt struck the hut in which they were sheltering, and 469 people were killed in Dronka, Egypt in 1994, when lightning tragically struck a set of tanks of petroleum, causing the ignition of the burning city oil.
The agency’s official advice is to follow the 30-30 rule: if the time between the flash and the thunder is less than 30 seconds, stay inside and wait 30 minutes after the last flash observed, to resume the outdoor activities.
Thunderstorms and lightning in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the past two days have left 110 dead, leaving at least 32 injured and causing considerable damage to property, officials from the two states announced on Thursday.
Lightning strikes were more devastating in Bihar, where 83 people have died since Wednesday, according to figures released Thursday by the Patna disaster management department.
More than 20 people were injured in the incidents and hospitalized, they said.
Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, at least 24 people died on Thursday after being struck by lightning, while 12 others were injured, officials in Lucknow said.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
