This is the longest lightning bolt and who’s measuring? Well this particular one is the longest of the reported ones and it stretched for 199.5 miles/321Km and had a flash that lasted over 7 seconds.
This occurred in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France, on the 30th of August according to the Time online.
That distance is about the length of Oklahoma which they say is about 230 miles wide and is certainly more than the length of Lagos state in Nigeria. Now that’s a long one right there even as the average length in miles of lightning bolt is about 6 miles/9.7 Km. well compare that to this and you know just how scary or interesting that was.
In light of this average length of 9Km, how were they able to measure a lightning bolt of that length? Well Randall Cerveny, chief Rapporteur of Climate and Weather Extremes for WMO told Time that because of technological improvements, climate experts can now monitor and detect specific lightning in greater detail than ever before.
He also highlighted the fact that lightning can travel huge distances from their parent thunderstorms.
The point here is, it’s best to take cover when thunder strikes and as you may know lightning can actually kill just as electrocution.
It is estimated that about 6,000 people die from lightning strikes globally but others think it might be as high as 24,000 as most cases don’t even make it to news channels. In the US, it’s been 35 death so far this year and this is the worst since 2007 when it was estimated that 45 people dies in that year.
Accordign to Reference.com, Lightning strikes reach the ground on Earth as much as 8 million times per day or 100 times per second, according to the National Severe Storms Laboratory. Out of all the lightning strikes in the world, the United States accounts for about 20 million of the total number of lightning strikes each year.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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