Scientists at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) recorded the longest thunderstorm in the high-latitude Arctic in the history of observations, the institute's press service told reporters on Wednesday. This is reported by TASS.

'In 2022, AARI scientists recorded the longest ever recorded thunderstorm in the high-latitude Arctic. The duration of the natural phenomenon was 55 minutes. The data was recorded last July at Russia's largest hydrometeorological observatory, the Cape Baranov Ice Base on Severnaya Zemlya,' the press service said.

Previously, thunderstorms were uncommon in the northern Arctic. But in recent years, the region's high latitudes have been plagued by thunderstorms of long duration, by local standards. The first official records of thunderstorms in the region were recorded in June 2019 at Bolshevik Island—a thunderstorm lasted 40 minutes then.

Scientists say that such significant changes in Arctic atmospheric processes are linked to the overall change in the Earth's climate over the past 30 years. Due to the warming in the polar regions, types of clouds that form thunderstorm fronts have begun to appear.