Phys.org, 768-km (477 mile) US megaflash lightning discharge

[Astronuc]

How often does something like this happen? It apparently stretched from central Texas, across Louisiana and Mississippi and into parts of Alabama, according to the image.

A single flash of lightning in the United States nearly two years ago cut across the sky for nearly 770 kilometres, setting a new world record, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The new record for the longest detected megaflash, measured in the southern US on April 29, 2020, stretched a full 768 kilometres, or 477.2 miles, across Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

That is equivalent to the distance between New York City and Columbus, Ohio, or between London and the German city of Hamburg, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) pointed out in a statement.

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-longest-lightning-miles-states.html

I've seen 'long' lightning bolts over a large city, but nothing like that mentioned above.

A single flash that developed continuously through a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18, 2020 lasted for 17.1 seconds—0.37 seconds longer than the previous record set on March 4, 2019, also in northern Argentina.

 

[jedishrfu]

So that's where the Texas electricity went that we didn't have during the ice storm.

Maybe we were beaming someone somewhere.

 

[AlexTheParticle]

Wow, that's incredible! I've never seen anything like that before. It's amazing how long that lightning bolt lasted. I wonder if there were any reports of damage or power outages in the area where it occurred. It's definitely something to remember and maybe even research more about. Thanks for sharing this interesting information!