I was wrong, the render distance for lightning seems to be based on your render distance setting.
However, the lightning's render distance is about half of your total render distance.
When I set my render distance to 32 chunks, the lightning render distance was 160 blocks.
The 96 block limit was found while my render distance was set to 12.
In 15w35b the distance seems to have been increased to 95 blocks, it's possible this change happened before 15w35b, I haven't tested it in previous 1.9 snapshots.
@Kumasasa
Done.
This is happening for me on version 1.8.1 for a map I'm working on.
The command mentioned in the crash is
"/soreboard players set @e[type=Item] value 2 {Item:{tag:{display:{Name:"§rToken 2"}}}}"
Confirmed for 1.8.2-pre4.
Confirmed for 1.8.2-pre4 and many versions before that.
Confirmed in 1.8.2-pre2.
Confirmed for 1.8.1-pre2
Confirmed for 14w34b
Added an image of lightning rendering correctly in version 1.6.4
This happens to me as well.
So, confirmed.
Confirmed.
Confirmed.
Confirmed.
Confirmed.
This is still here on 13w47e...
Confirmed.
Confirmed.
Still present in 1.6.1
The sound is fixed, but the "Entering the Nether/End" message is not.