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A single flash of lightning that stretched 829 km across the central United States in October 2017 was certified in 2025 by the World Meteorological Organization as the longest ever recorded.

World Meteorological Organization (2025)

ScienceNature

The story behind the card

Flashes this long are called megaflashes: instead of striking straight down, they race sideways through the clouds of huge storm systems for hundreds of kilometres. This one ran from eastern Texas to near Kansas City. It was spotted years later in data from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper, an instrument on a US weather satellite that records lightning across the Americas from about 36,000 km up. The World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations agency that keeps official weather records, checked the measurement, 829 km give or take 8 km, and certified it in 2025. It beat the previous record of 768 km, set over the southern United States in April 2020.

Türkçe oku
Ekim 2017'de ABD'nin orta kesimlerinde 829 kilometre boyunca uzanan tek bir şimşek, 2025'te Dünya Meteoroloji Örgütü tarafından kayıtlara geçmiş en uzun şimşek olarak onaylandı.
Dünya Meteoroloji Örgütü (2025)

Bu kadar uzun şimşeklere İngilizcede “megaflash” deniyor: Yere dikine inmek yerine, dev fırtına sistemlerinin bulutları içinde yüzlerce kilometre yatay olarak ilerliyorlar. Bu şimşek doğu Teksas'tan Kansas City yakınlarına kadar uzandı. Yıllar sonra, bir ABD meteoroloji uydusundaki Geostationary Lightning Mapper adlı aygıtın verilerinde fark edildi; bu aygıt yaklaşık 36.000 kilometre yükseklikten Amerika kıtasındaki şimşekleri kaydediyor. Resmî hava rekorlarını tutan Birleşmiş Milletler kuruluşu Dünya Meteoroloji Örgütü, artı eksi 8 kilometre payla 829 kilometre olan ölçümü inceledi ve 2025'te onayladı. Böylece Nisan 2020'de ABD'nin güneyinde ölçülen 768 kilometrelik önceki rekor geride kaldı.

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