Lightning that stretched nearly 800 kilometres across three US states broke the world record for the longest bolt.
The single flash extended 768 kilometres across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi in April 2020, the World Meteorological Organisation said on Monday. That beat the previous record of 709km set in Brazil in 2018.
Also in 2020, a single lightning flash over Uruguay and northern Argentina lasted 17.1 seconds, pipping the previous record of 16.7 seconds.
Normally lightning does not stretch much beyond 16km and lasts less than a second, said Arizona State University’s Randall Cerveny, who is the chief of records confirmation for the meteorological organisation.
“These two lightning flash records are absolutely extraordinary,” Mr Cerveny said.
Both were cloud-to-cloud, several thousand metres above the ground, so no one was in danger, he said.
These records, which are not linked to climate change, were spotted and confirmed thanks to new satellite tracking technology. Both regions are two of the few places in the world prone to the type of intense storms that can produce what are called megaflashes, Mr Cerveny said.
Watch lightning hit the Burj Khalifa
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What is a calorie?
A food calorie, or kilocalorie, is a measure of nutritional energy generated from what is consumed.
One calorie, is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1°C.
A kilocalorie represents a 1,000 true calories of energy.
Energy density figures are often quoted as calories per serving, with one gram of fat in food containing nine calories, and a gram of protein or carbohydrate providing about four.
Alcohol contains about seven calories a gram.
