“We call it megaflash lightning and we’re just now figuring out the mechanics of how and why it occurs,” study co-author and Arizona State University climatologist Randy Cerveny said in a statement.

Scientists have long understood why lightning forms, but the atomic processes at the core of the phenomenon have remained largely a mystery—especially the strange mechanics behind terrestrial ...

Lightning flashes streak across the sky in the German countryside. One large flash is mostly horizontal, another one is vertical. Sometimes lightning bolts can stretch hundreds of miles horizontally.

An enormous, 515-mile-long flash of lightning that crossed at least three states has been named the longest in recorded history in the world. The 2017 “megaflash” stretched from eastern Texas to near ...