Longest lasting lightning flash
- Who
- 18 June 2020 Uruguay and Argentina lightning flash
- What
- 17.102 second(s)
- Where
- Uruguay
- When
- 18 June 2020
A single lightning flash that occurred over Uruguay and northern Argentina on 18 June 2020 lasted for 17.102 seconds (give or take 0.002 seconds). The event was verified by the World Meteorological Organization on 1 February 2022. The average duration for a lightning bolt is just 0.2 seconds.
The longest duration "megaflash" had a previous duration of 16.73 seconds which was derived from a flash that developed continuously over northern Argentina on 4 March 2019, 0.37 seconds shorter than the new record.