New “Megaflash” Lightning Record Set; Could Provide Severe Storm Insights
Senior Research Scientist Michael Peterson is shown in the Operations Center of the Georgia Tech Research Institute’s Severe Storms Research Center. Shown behind him is a visualization of the longest recorded lightning flash. (Image: Sean McNeil, GTRI)
A lightning flash that extended from near Dallas, Texas, to Kansas City, Missouri, now holds the record for the longest lightning discharge ever recorded. Known as a “megaflash,” the lightning discharge spanned some 515 miles (829 kilometers) and lasted 7.39 seconds. It included over a hundred individual cloud-to-ground strikes that were part of a large storm system extending from Minnesota to Texas.
Most lightning flashes are much shorter – 10 miles or less – but discharges that travel hundreds of miles occur frequently enough to be detected from space and are often seen in the Great Plains area of the United States. Beyond the inherent interest in their unusual length and duration, meteorologists are studying these megaflashes to learn more about the mysteries of lightning, to develop new approaches for predicting the risk of severe storms – and to provide public warning of lightning bolts that may occur unexpectedly long after the storm front spawning them has passed.
The new record megaflash was identified in data from a storm that occurred in October 2017. The flash produced more than 116 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes from a lengthy and complex series of jagged paths woven through the clouds. It was not found earlier because of how the data was originally processed, but was finally identified when the satellite data was re-analyzed in 2024.
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