June 20 , 2007 was a landmark escort in weather history . During a thunderstorm over Oklahoma , a lightning bolt extended 199.5 mile from outside Tulsa to the border of Texas . AsSmithsonianreports , the striking phenomenon was recently confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization ( WMO ) as the longest lightning streak on book .
This special dash of firing was n’t what meteorologists are used to seeing from thunderstorms . The immense majority of lightning can be sort out as “ negative lightning”—this fall out when a negative charge strike the ground from a swarm , typically spanning 6 miles at most .
The criminal record - breaking Oklahoma bolt belong to the 5 pct of lighting create by a positive bearing . overconfident lighting contain 10 clip the free energy of a negative bolt and in general spans up to 25 sea mile . As the Oklahoma case shows , extreme examples are sometimes farm under the right conditions . When the 200 - statute mile bolt lit up the sky , it could be see from as far away as Colorado .
The A-one - sized lightning was n’t the only book latterly greet by the World Meteorological Organization . They also list a 7.74 - s flashbulb detect over Provence - Alpes - Côte d’Azur , France on August 30 , 2012 as the longest lightning continuance ever register .
These thrilling upshot cross off the first meter lightning has made it into WMO ’s Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes . They ’ve also change the style the organization defines the phenomenon . harmonise to the paper from theBulletin of the American Meteorological Society , the WMO committee has unanimously recommended revising the definition of lightning from a “ serial of electrical processes taking spot within one second ” to a “ serial of electric processes taking shoes continuously . ”
well understanding what lightning is capable of can also assist expert recommend more precise safety guidelines in the font of extreme weather condition . The number of annual lightning deaths has beensteadily decline since the 1940s , and that ’s part due to a raised awareness of atmospheric condition safety . For now , theexperts at WMO still recommend“when nose drops thunder , go indoors ” as a ecumenical formula of ovolo .
[ h / tSmithsonian ]
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