In 2007, a lightning bolt in Oklahoma stretched nearly 200 miles, measured using new remote sensing techniques by the World Meteorological Organization. Lightning can reach far distances and people need protection. The US experiences 25 million lightning strikes annually, causing deaths and injuries. Lightning is hotter than the sun and can strike the same place multiple times. Florida is the most lightning-prone state.
Oklahoma may be where “the wind comes sweeping down the plain,” but it’s also where a bolt of lightning set a record by stretching nearly 200 miles in 2007. The ability to measure the length of lightning is a development relatively new, and was used to measure a single shot that covered an astounding 199.5 miles (321 km) – nearly the entire width of the state of Oklahoma. The work to accurately measure lightning was undertaken by the World Meteorological Organization, which relied on newly developed high-tech remote sensing techniques. The findings confirmed what meteorologists have long believed: Lightning can reach distances far from the original storms, and people need protection even if they think a storm is too far away to present any danger. The United States experiences about 25 million lightning strikes each year, which kill dozens of people and injure hundreds more.
Lightning Look:
A single bolt of lightning is more than five times hotter than the surface of the sun.
Despite the saying, lightning can strike the same place more than once; for example, the Empire State Building is struck by lightning dozens of times every year.
Florida is the most lightning-prone US state and even has a so-called “Lightning Alley” between Tampa and Orlando.
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