In 2018, a gigantic lightning bolt stretched over the atmosphere of Brazil. The length of the lightning was more than 700 kilometers from the Atlantic coast to the end of Argentina.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO), showed in their new analysis that this lightning is the longest lightning bolt ever recorded. With the help of satellites, scientist confirmed that the
bolt was twice as long as the previously recorded bolt of 320km over Oklahoma in 2007.
However, it not that the long lightning bolts are occurring now, rather lightning monitoring technology is improving very fastly now.
“It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as lightning-detection technology improves,” Randall Cerveny, chief rapporteur of Weather and Climate Extremes for WMO, said in the statement.
Lightning occurs when ice crystals of cold air collide with the water droplets of warms air inside the thunderstorm. By colliding they create friction which in turn creates the electric charges that move throughout the cloud. When the lower portion of the cloud becomes overloaded with the negative charge, electricity moves towards a region having a positive charge, which can be on the ground or on the cloud itself.
Lightning strikes in the region of high humidity as more thunderstorms are formed due to convection and in the mountainous region having high altitude. Both these conditions exist in South America, therefore making it worlds leading lightning hotspots.
