The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced it had confirmed two new records for “megaflashes” of lightning in North and South America in a press release on February 1. These satellite images captured by the NOAA show the progression of a storm that brought a flash of lightning that spanned Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi on April 29, 2020. The WMO said the 477.2-mile-long flash broke the previous record for longest detected megaflash distance by about 37 miles (60 km). A second record was also confirmed, for the longest duration of a single lightning flash, over Uruguay on June 18, 2020. That flash lasted 17.102 seconds, according to the WMO. Both locations are considered “notorious hot spots” for lightning activity due to the dynamics of their environments, the organization wrote in a press release. Credit: NOAA via Storyful

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