Latest news with #RandyCerveny
Yahoo
02-08-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
World's Longest Lightning Strike Crossed 515 Miles From Texas to Kansas
A bolt of lightning that arced across the sky from Texas to Kansas in the fall of 2017 has officially smashed the record for the world's longest. During a major thunderstorm in October 2017, the colossal crack of jagged electricity streaked across the Great Plains of North America for 829 kilometers (515 miles) – a distance that surpassed the previous record by 61 kilometers. "We call it megaflash lightning and we're just now figuring out the mechanics of how and why it occurs," says geographical scientist Randy Cerveny of Arizona State University and the World Meteorological Organization. "It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as additional high-quality lightning measurements accumulate over time." Related: Lightning Really Does Strike Twice, And This Is Where It Happens Most Lightning is one of the most breathtaking phenomena on Earth. It occurs when turbulent conditions in the atmosphere jostle particles around, rubbing them together to generate charge. Eventually, so much charge builds up that it has to go somewhere, producing a discharge of millions of volts across the sky. The lightning bolt with the previously greatest-known horizontal distance was recorded on 29 April 2020, when a cloud-to-cloud megaflash covered a distance of 768 kilometers across parts of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Both the previous and current record-holders were detected using the NOAA's GOES-16 and GOES-17 geostationary weather satellites, which are equipped with Geostationary Lightning Mappers (GLMs) that continuously monitor the sky for extreme lightning. GOES-16 was launched in late 2016, and managed to record the giant storm of October 2017, but the megaflash wasn't detected until a team led by atmospheric scientist Michael Peterson of Georgia Institute of Technology's Severe Storms Research Center revisited the data. Most lightning bolts are relatively small, less than 10 miles long, and have a tendency to strike vertically. But some travel horizontally through the clouds, and if the cloud complex is particularly large, that can mean giant bolts of lightning. Anything more than 100 kilometers long is considered a megaflash. Measuring a megaflash is painstaking work that involves putting together satellite and ground-based data to reconstruct the extent of the event in three dimensions. This helps determine that the megaflash is one single lightning strike, as well as measuring just how big it is. Because the strike is often at least partially obscured by cloud, such megaflashes are easy to miss. The GOES satellites are a major part of the puzzle, since they continuously monitor the sky. They also identified the longest-lasting lightning strike on record back in 2022, a colossal flash that lasted 17.102 seconds during a storm over Uruguay and Argentina in June 2020. It's no coincidence that both megaflashes occurred over the Great Plains. This region is a major hotspot for the mesoscale convective system thunderstorms that are most conducive to megaflashes. So, if the record is to be broken in the future – which is a strong possibility – it could come from the same region. "The extremes of what lightning is capable of is difficult to study because it pushes the boundaries of what we can practically observe. Adding continuous measurements from geostationary orbit was a major advance," says Peterson. "We are now at a point where most of the global megaflash hotspots are covered by a geostationary satellite, and data processing techniques have improved to properly represent flashes in the vast quantity of observational data at all scales. "Over time, as the data record continues to expand, we will be able to observe even the rarest types of extreme lightning on Earth and investigate the broad impacts of lightning on society," Peterson concludes. The result has been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Related News Stunning New Video Reveals Deepest-Known Undersea Life Forms How a Giant Earthquake Triggered a Surprisingly Small Tsunami Giant Earthquake Off Russian Coast Triggers Mass Evacuations as Far as Hawaii Solve the daily Crossword
India Today
01-08-2025
- Science
- India Today
Lighting bolt sets world record: It would have lit up the sky from Delhi to Bhopal
A single bolt of lightning that tore across the skies of the American heartland has shattered world records and stunned October 2017, a 'megaflash' of lightning streaked 828 kilometres, roughly the distance from eastern Texas to nearly Kansas City, Missouri, making it the longest lightning discharge ever measured. When seen in the Indian context, this single bolt would have stretched from New Delhi to jaw-dropping distance, confirmed by the World Meteorological Organisation, eclipses the previous record by over 60 kilometers and highlights just how far-reaching and powerful nature's electrical displays can be. This record-setting event was only brought to light after scientists re-analysed satellite observations from the storm. Traditionally, lightning was tracked using ground-based antenna networks, which limited detection mostly to local advanced space-based sensors—like the Geostationary Lightning Mapper aboard NOAA's GOES-16 satellite—make it possible to chart lightning activity across entire continents, pinpointing the start, end, and full trajectory of each flash down to the millisecond. Photo: WMO 'Our weather satellites carry very exacting lightning detection equipment,' said Arizona State University's Randy Cerveny, a lead scientist on the discovery and rapporteur of weather and climate extremes for the United Nations. 'It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as high-quality lightning measurements accumulate over time.'What makes a 'megaflash'? While most lightning bolts cover less than 16 kilometres, any bolt exceeding 100 kilometers than 1 percent of storms ever produce a megaflash. These extraordinary electrical events tend to arise from sprawling, long-lived thunderstorms, systems that may last 14 hours or more and cover areas as large as the state of New Jersey. The 2017 megaflash also spurred more than a hundred ground strikes as it zig-zagged across the urge caution: lightning's reach often extends far beyond a visible storm. Many fatalities occur because people reemerge outdoors before it's truly safe.'That's why you should wait at least half an hour after a thunderstorm passes before you go out and resume normal activities,' Cerveny 2017 megaflash provides a striking reminder that when it comes to lightning, danger can travel farther, and linger longer, than ever imagined.- EndsMust Watch
RNZ News
31-07-2025
- Science
- RNZ News
‘Megaflash' lightning bolt travelled over 800 kilometres, setting a new record, study says
By Tyler Ory , CNN Megaflashes are rare - with fewer than one percent of thunderstorms producing them. (File photo) Photo: Unsplash/ Rahul Viswanath Lightning is a familiar sight in stormy skies, but a new report has revealed just how far some bolts can travel - in one case, more than 500 miles (800 km). That astonishing bolt sparked to life in eastern Texas and stretched all the way to Kansas City, Missouri, travelling 515 miles (828 km) in seconds. It struck during a thunderstorm in October 2017, but the bolt's exact distance was finally verified in the study, published Thursday in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. "We call it megaflash lightning and we're just now figuring out the mechanics of how and why it occurs," said Randy Cerveny, one of the study's authors and a professor of geographical sciences at Arizona State University. Researchers discovered the record-breaking megaflash while re-evaluating satellite data with new computational methods. The data from the satellites also provided much greater detail than previous observations, letting scientists determine individual megaflashes in these past storms. "Flashes at this extreme scale always existed, and are now becoming identifiable as our detection capabilities and data processing methods improve," the paper says. It's helping scientists and forecasters better understand what lightning is capable of and the dangers it poses. All lightning is an electric discharge - much like a static shock, just on a larger scale. Inside a thunderstorm, ice and water particles collide and exchange electrons, creating a buildup of electric charge. Lightning occurs when that charge becomes too strong for the atmosphere to hold onto and discharges it in the form of a bolt either through the cloud or down to the ground. Most lightning stays within 10 miles (16 km) of the storm where it originated. When it travels more than 60 miles (96 km), it's considered a megaflash. Michael Peterson, the report's lead author and a senior scientist at Georgia Institute of Technology's Severe Storms Research Center, said megaflashes tend to form in the weaker, outer parts of a storm system - not the intense core most people associate with lightning - and often after the storm has moved on. The record-breaking 2017 flash followed that same pattern, creeping through the broad cloud layers that trailed a cold front across the southern Plains. Flat, sheet-like clouds stretching from Texas to Kansas City formed a shallow layer that could easily conduct electricity - creating ideal conditions for lightning to travel horizontally for hundreds of miles (km). As the megaflash travels through the clouds, it can shoot off multiple ground-striking bolts. "You might have an entire thunderstorm's worth of lightning, cloud to ground strokes, in one flash," Peterson noted. Megaflashes are rare: Fewer than 1 percent of thunderstorms produce them, according to satellite data analysed by Peterson in the study. The storms that do are also generally long-lived and massive, covering thousands of square miles. That expansiveness is key, Peterson said, and is likely "the primary driver" of megaflashes, as smaller storms can't support as much horizontal travel. "But the thing is that we don't actually know exactly what sets of conditions actually allow these flashes to occur at these scales," Peterson added. The 2017 megaflash may be the longest ever verified, now beating out a bolt of 477 miles (767 km) in April 2020, but scientists don't expect it to hold that title for long. "Oh, we'll find more," Cerveny said. "We are still in the process of evaluating data." The satellite-based lightning mappers that made this discovery possible have only been operation for about 10 years - a short window in climate science terms - and there's a lot more data to analyse. The tools used to track extreme events like the Texas-to-Missouri bolt are opening new frontiers in lightning research, said Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist with the National Lightning Safety Council who was not involved in the study. "What I'm looking forward to is seeing how does the location of where lightning occurs change?" Vagasky said. "It is going to be really useful from having all of these datasets, ground-based or satellite- based, to help us really understand what is going on with lightning and thunderstorms." While megaflashes are rare, their risks are very real. Peterson said they represent a kind of worst-case lightning scenario: Powerful discharges capable of sparking wildfires or causing damage far from a storm's core. "You don't see where they come from. You only see where they strike," Peterson said. "The extent of the hazard and then the fact that it's unexpected both contribute to why it's important to understand for public safety." Many lightning injuries happen because people underestimate how far a bolt can actually travel from a storm and how long the danger can linger. Cerveny, too, emphasized the importance of correcting the misconception that lightning can strike "out of the blue." "These megaflashes really point out one of the severe problems that is associated with thunderstorms," said Cerveny. "A lightning flash can start in a thunderstorm very far away, and travel, as we've just shown, 500 miles (800 km) before it ends." - CNN
Gizmodo
31-07-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
Astonishing ‘Megaflash' Sets World Record for Longest Lightning Strike
A lightning flash tore across the sky above the Great Plains, stretching across a staggering 515 miles (829 kilometers) from eastern Texas to Kansas City. That 'megaflash' shattered the previous record for longest lightning flash of 477 miles (768 kilometers), set in 2023. An international team of researchers documented the record-breaking flash in a new report in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Scientists were able to capture the flash thanks to advances in satellite technology and new computational tools. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the meteorological agency within the United Nations, officially recognized the new record on July 31. 'We call it megaflash lightning and we're just now figuring out the mechanics of how and why it occurs,' Randy Cerveny, a professor of geography at Arizona State University and one of the authors of the report, said in a statement. Vertically, lightning typically measures between 3.7 and 6 miles (6 and 10 kilometers), with some bolts reaching as high as 12 miles (20 kilometers). But horizontally, lightning flashes can extend much, much farther—sometimes hundreds of miles. When a lightning bolt reaches beyond 60 miles (100 kilometers), it's classified as a megaflash. Less than 1% of thunderstorms produce megaflashes, according to previous satellite observations. Historically, scientists relied on ground-based networks of antennas to detect lightning flashes. These antennas detect radio signals emitted by lightning and use timing differences between antennas to estimate the flash's location and speed. That changed around 2017. Since then, lightning detectors equipped to satellites have made it possible for researchers to detect and measure lightning across continental-scale distances. The new report used data captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency's (NOAA) GOES-16 satellite, launched in late 2016, and several other weather-monitoring satellites. These satellites use an optical sensor specialized to measure the radiant energy of light emitted during a discharge, allowing researchers to record its position and extent. With this new satellite technology, scientists have measured hundreds of megaflashes. Since then, the record for longest megaflash has continually been broken, most recently by the 2023 flash that measured 477 miles (768 kilometers). Some of the satellite data proved difficult to process using earlier computational methods. By applying updated, more efficient algorithms, researchers were able to reanalyze the data—ultimately identifying the new record-breaking flash. And scientists expect megaflashes to get even more dramatic in the future. 'It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as additional high-quality lightning measurements accumulate over time,' said Cerveny.
News18
31-07-2025
- Science
- News18
Texas To Kansas Lightning Bolt Confirmed As World's Longest Ever At 829 Kilometres
The world's longest lightning bolt, stretching 829 km across the Great Plains, was confirmed by the WMO. A massive lightning strike that lit up the skies from Texas to Kansas has been confirmed as the world's longest lightning bolt ever recorded, stretching an astonishing 829 kilometres across the Great Plains. The strike occurred in October 2017 but was only recently confirmed, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Thursday. The bolt, classified as a 'megaflash," beat the previous record of 768 kilometres by a significant 61-kilometre margin. The previous record-holder flashed across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi in April 2020. Unlike regular lightning, megaflashes stretch horizontally across clouds, often over hundreds of kilometres. Scientists say they are still learning about how these rare phenomena occur. 'We're just now figuring out the mechanics of how and why it occurs," said Randy Cerveny of Arizona State University, who also works with the WMO. 'It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as additional high-quality lightning measurements accumulate over time." The discovery was made using satellite data from NOAA's GOES East weather satellite, which orbits over 35,000 kilometres above the Earth's surface. This high-altitude vantage point allows researchers to capture massive lightning events that ground-based detection systems often miss. Typically, most lightning bolts are less than 16 kilometres long and strike vertically. But when conditions allow, some stretch horizontally for hundreds of kilometres inside thundercloud systems and that's when megaflashes are born. Scientists classify any lightning bolt longer than 100 kilometres as a megaflash. The WMO said the new record highlights not only the raw power of nature, but also advances in lightning tracking technology that allow researchers to map and confirm such rare events. Lightning is caused by the build-up and discharge of electrical energy in storm clouds. As particles within the cloud collide, they create a separation of charges where positive charges rise to the top and negative sink to the bottom. When the imbalance becomes too great, electricity surges through the air in a sudden flash. This raw, powerful force of nature has fascinated humans for centuries, symbolising both fear and awe. Beyond its visual drama, lightning helps maintain Earth's electrical balance and contributes to nitrogen fixation in the soil, which is essential for plant life and a reminder of its hidden ecological role. view comments Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
