This is a pretty cool one! We know that lightning can travel very far away from where it starts, even outside of the thunderstorms that they reside in, but The World Meteorological Organization confirmed a new world record for the longest lightning bolt ever recorded. 

This actually took place back in October 2017, but it has now been confirmed. This lightning flash was confirmed to have stretched an astonishing 515 miles! It went from eastern Texas to near Kansas City, MO! 

Satellite image of the record extent lightning flash of 829 km ± 8 km (515 ± 5 mi) that extended from eastern Texas to near Kansas City MO USA within a 22 October 2017 thunderstorm complex.

Image: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

The beats a previous record that was confirmed from 2020 when a lightning flash extended 477 miles from parts of Texas all the way to the coast of Mississippi. 

These huge lightning flashes are called "mega-flashes". That new record of 515 miles is equivalent to driving from Louisville to Green Bay, WI! That would take you about 7.5 hours to drive that far! 

Here are more accepted WMO lightning extremes courtesy of the WMO themselves:

Other previously accepted WMO lightning extremes are:

• The greatest duration for a single lightning flash of 17.102 ± 0.002 seconds during a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina on 18 June 2020.
• Direct strike: 21 people killed by a single flash of lightning as they huddled for safety in a hut in Zimbabwe in 1975.
• Indirect strike: 469 people killed in Dronka Egypt when lightning struck a set of oil tanks, causing burning oil to flood the town in 1994.