Lightning is one of the most astonishing phenomena on Earth. It occurs when particles in clouds clash due to turbulent weather conditions, leading to friction and the generation of massive charges that discharge across the sky or between the sky and the ground. Measuring the giant flash is a challenging task involving the collection of satellite and ground-based data to reconstruct the event’s extent in three dimensions. The GOES satellites play a crucial role in detecting these lightning strikes due to their constant monitoring of the sky. The longest recorded lightning strike was identified in 2022, an enormous flash lasting 17.102 seconds during a storm over Uruguay and Argentina in June 2020. Notably, both lightning strikes occurred in the same region, the “Great Plains of North America,” and a third is expected in the same area as it is considered a major hotspot for medium-sized convective thunderstorms, which are most conducive to giant flashes.
