(Adnkronos) – A ‘mega lightning bolt’, 829 kilometers long, has won the world record in the category, complete with certification from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The phenomenon was observed on October 22, 2017, during a particularly intense storm over the American Great Plains region, “extending from east Texas to the area surrounding Kansas City, for a distance equivalent to that separating Paris and Venice,” the WMO underlined in a statement.
A committee of 11 experts from the United States, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Nepal, and Israel certified the new record. The previous record (768 km) was observed in the United States, between Mississippi and Texas on April 29, 2020, and was certified in 2022. The lightning bolt holding the new record “was not identified during the initial examination conducted in 2017 but was discovered during a subsequent reassessment.”
