Michael Peterson, a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, detected two world-record lightning "megaflashes." The longest in distance spanned more than 477 miles, from Mississippi to Texas. The longest in duration lasted 17.1 seconds. Peterson talks about how — and why — researchers want to track these monster bolts.
Megaflashes are incredibly rare. In order to record one from the ground, or from an aircraft or satellite in a low orbit, the sensor has to be exactly in the right place at the right time, which is unlikely. Now, researchers are using Geostationary Lightning Mappers and other instruments that can map flash size from space and — importantly — provide continuous coverage over a large portion of the Earth. No matter how rare these megaflashes are or where they occur across the instrument’s vast field of view, GLM can detect them and measure their dimensions.
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