ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses one of the newest and most popular categories in the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes, lightning. The author first discusses the processes in which lightning is formed, the equipment used to detect and measure lightning, and a new type of lightning event: the megalightning flash, a horizontal lightning discharge that extends literally hundreds of miles in length. The author profiles three of the ‘new generation’ of lightning researchers in the context of our investigation of two lightning discharge extremes (the ‘longest lightning flash’ distance record covering a horizontal distance of 768 km (477 miles) across parts of the southern United States and the Gulf of Mexico on 29 April 2020 and the ‘greatest duration for a single lightning flash’ lasting 17.1 seconds for a thunderstorm stretching over Uruguay and northern Argentina on 18 June 2020. The chapter is followed by a short interlude of two ‘freakish’ stories, a) the discovery of ‘dark lightning’ (gamma ray lightning events) and b) ball lightning.
