As of 2025, the longest lightning bolt in the world spanned several states

Lightning bolts are about as thick as a garden hose

The conductive filament ranges from about 2.5 to 5.0 centimeters (1 to 2 inches), though its extreme brightness makes it appear much thicker and visible from miles away. Scars on individuals who suffer a direct strike produce Lichtenberg figures with similar maximum thickness.

The unpredictability and brevity of lightning make lightning power impractical

While a typical lightning strike provides 30,000 amps at 300 million volts, the bolt only lasts about 30 microseconds. If the electrical surge could be captured—assuming one knew beforehand where it would strike—it would only provide enough electricity to power one home for about 6.4 hours.

Every day, lightning releases several Hiroshima bombs' worth of energy into the atmosphere

If all this lightning struck one location at once, the bolt would be the diameter of the center circle of a basketball court, turning the entire court into a crater. Its heat would ignite surfaces for miles around, and its shockwave would demolish buildings.

Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo is considered the lightning capital of the world

Spread across 140 to 160 nights, and as many as 10 hours per night, the region where the Catatumbo River flows into the semi-enclosed bay experiences approximately 1.6 million lightning strikes annually. The frequency of strikes may originate from warm Caribbean air interacting with cooler air from the Andes.

The air around lightning can be five times hotter than the sun's surface

The rapid discharge of electricity—flowing electrons—between oppositely charged regions across a narrow filament can raise temperatures to 30,000 degrees Celsius (54,000 degrees Fahrenheit). If lightning strikes a tree, the speed of the temperature spike can almost immediately turn all its water into pressurized steam, causing it to explode.

Between 2006 and 2021, 444 people died from lightning strikes in the US

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that the odds of being struck by lightning in one's lifetime are one in 18,864. Participation in outdoor activities during the summer months in Florida, Texas, and Colorado increases one's risk of exposure.

The sound of thunder can vary based on your distance from lightning

The rapid flow of electricity heats and pressurizes air, causing it to expand and produce a shockwave at each point along the bolt at multiple frequencies. As these shockwaves overlap, higher-frequency sounds, which produce a sudden crack, dissipate more quickly, while lower-frequency sounds—long booms and rumbles—travel farther.

Lightning storms are more common in coastal and tropical regions

Water-abundant areas that receive increased solar radiation, such as those near the equator, experience increased rates of evaporation, which produce tall clouds as moisture rises, cools, and condenses. Mountain ranges can also steer air to higher altitudes, creating collisions between atmospheric particles that generate charge imbalances—the precursors to lightning.

Track lightning strikes around the world

The Blitzortung platform triangulates the positions of this phenomenon from stations that detect atmospheric interference in low-frequency signals that are characteristic of lightning strikes. A network of nearly 2,000 stations transmits the required data to a central server, where its software performs these calculations and generates the subsequent visualization.

Stretching from Texas to the Dakotas, Tornado Alley is a US tornado hotspot

The region experiences atmospheric instability and extensive wind shear due to the convergence of warm, moist air from the Gulf with cooler, drier air from the Rockies. However, some recent data suggests tornadoes are more frequent and more powerful in the Dixie Valley, which includes much of the lower Mississippi Valley.

Understanding ball lightning remains an area of active research

Observations of glowing orbs of light that appear during or after thunderstorms have been documented since at least the 12th century, but their rarity and short lifetimes have made their study challenging. Some theories suggest they form when lightning vaporizes pockets of gases in the air or certain materials on the ground.

As of 2025, the world's largest tropical cyclone spanned half the continental US

Typhoon Tip traveled across the western Pacific Ocean in 1979, achieving winds of 300 kilometers per hour. Though it weakened significantly before making landfall in Japan, its rainfall produced over 600 mudslides and killed 42 people.

Dirty lightning is a thunderstorm created from friction between rising and falling flows of ash and smoke during volcanic eruptions.

Rare chance for US states to see Northern Lights

A solar storm in July 2023 offered people in 17 American states, as well as Canada, an unusual chance to witness the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis. The 11-year solar cycle, reaching its peak in 2024, made the lights visible in places further south than usual. Read up on the announcement from the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks here.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

A teenager survived being flung a world-record 1,307 feet by a tornado

On March 12, 2006, 19-year-old Matt Suter was lifted into a tornado while inside a mobile home in Fordland, Missouri. Despite traveling 1,307 feet, his only significant injury was a head wound caused by being hit by a lamp prior to being transported.

Could the world's largest solar storm happen again?

In 1859, the world witnessed the most intense solar storm in recorded history. The electromagnetic deluge of dust and gas lit up the night sky and sparked fires, disrupting Earth's magnetic field and putting on a show for the millions. If a storm with a similar intensity today occurred, scientists believe it would be catastrophic for our communications systems. Learn what would happen if the Carrington Event happened again here.

Explore a gallery of lightning photography taken from the Grand Canyon

In this series, award-winning photographer Adam Schallau accompanies each image with expert advice on how to capture the phenomenon successfully. Initially requiring the shutter to remain open for extended periods, today's technology includes a device called a lightning trigger, which senses incoming lightning and automatically manages the shutter.

A breakdown of the Detonation Research Test Facility, which features a 500-foot explosion tube

Located at Texas A&M University, DRTF is the largest explosions lab in the world as of 2026 and features a steel-and-concrete structure that scientists use to initiate and track explosions with split-second precision. Among the facility's goals are studying the large industrial explosions, hypersonic flight, and supernovae.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

View a map of US data center infrastructure in 2025

Thousands of data centers across the country have already been built, with more under construction or planned. Facilities are connected via transmission and fiber optic lines, with the latter spanning an estimated length of 160 million miles.

The longest word in English is 189,819 letters long

The wildly-winding word (so long that we can't fit it here) is the proper name for titin, a protein that keeps muscles elastic.

The world's longest-burning fire

This coal fire in New South Wales, Australia, a common occurrence at coal mines, has been burning for at least 5,500 years, and shows no signs of stopping.

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states, ranging from a complete ban on non-professional fireworks in Massachusetts to states with more lax rules like Indiana.

See the world's longest glass-bottom bridge in China

China's Huangchuan Three Gorges Scenic Area sports the world's longest glass-bottom bridge, spanning over 1,700 feet. Designed by the Architectural Design & Research Institute of Zhejiang University, it stands 660 feet above the Lianjiang River. The bridge features bright red towers, an 29-foot-wide deck with three layers of thick glass, and can support 500 people. The bridge surpassed the previous record-holder, a 1,600-foot bridge in Hebei province.

See the total number of Lyme cases per state in 2023

New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts had the highest total number of Lyme disease cases in 2023. New York had more than 22,000 cases that year. Maine had one of the highest Lyme incidence rates of disease that year—213 per 100,000 people—but only 2,942 cases overall.

The title of 'World’s Largest Christmas Tree' is disputed

Cities in the US, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands all claim they have the world’s largest Christmas tree—ranging from massive evergreens, TV and communication towers, and hillside light displays.

Massachusetts is the only state that bans all non-professional fireworks

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. It states that Indiana's rules are relatively loose as compared with other states. Beyond state and local rules on firework purchases and use, there are also regulations about the fuses on fireworks—they must burn between three and nine seconds to help reduce the risk of injury if the user doesn't get away quickly enough.

Satellite imagery of the massive seaweed blob in the Atlantic

A belt of sargassum seaweed that stretches from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico is the largest on record for March.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

Poison ivy will likely become both larger and more resilient due to climate change.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

About 12.5% of US adults experience a phobia in their lifetime, a diagnosis that hinges on the intense fear interfering with daily life and persisting for at least six months.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

The 2026 Ebola outbreak in the DRC is spurring new Ebola vaccine development for the Bundibugyo species.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.