New World Record for LONGEST Lightning Bolt

The World Meteorological Organization has announced a couple of new world records involving lightning strikes: the longest recorded lightning strike and greatest duration.

The record for the longest lightning strike is 440.6 miles -- seven miles less than the length of Florida. Whoa.

This strike was occurred in Southern Brazil in 2018 but has just been certified by the World Meteorological Organization.

The previous record for the longest distance for a bolt of lightning was 199.5 miles in 2007 in Oklahoma.

The WMO also announced another lightning-related record: "Longest Continuous Flash of Lightning" with a 16.73-second lightning strike which happened in Argentina on March 4th, 2019.

The previous record for duration was 7.74 seconds on 30 August 2012 in France.