The longest lightning recorded was 829 kilometers, a record ray
Storm in San Sebastian, May 2, 2025.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) today confirmed that the longest lightning ever measured spread over 829 kilometers across several areas of the United States in 2017.
The meteorological phenomenon, which occurred in October of that year in a violent storm that at one point illuminated areas between Texas and Kansas, "would take a car eight or nine hours to cover that distance, and an aircraft 90 minutes, "the Organization said in a statement.
The margin of error of the calculations presented today is 8 kilometers, but in any case it exceeds the previous mark : 768 kilometers of lightning that fell in the Great Plains ofthe United States.
Until recently, it was not known that lightning could spread horizontally at great distances, but in recent years satellite measurements have taken a great step forward, and these kinds of measurements have improved.
The WMO also records the longest lasting lightning, a flash that lasted just over 17 seconds , during a storm in Argentina and Uruguay in June 2020.
The deadliest in Zimbabwe and Egypt
On the other hand, the lightning that has caused the most direct deaths in history killed21 people , in 1975 in Zimbabwe, when it struck a cabin.
Indirectly, in 1994, another in Dronka, Egypt, caused 469 deaths, the deadliest, as oil deposits burned, and then the population burned.
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