PyroCu in Wyoming

On 18 July a pyroCu formed in Wyoming. GOES-15 detected the smoke plumes and pyroCu cloud, as well as the fire hot spot. The pyroCu (43.2º N, 110.5º W) formed from the Cliff Creek Fire around 21:00 UTC .  Starting at 20:30 UTC on 18 July, the animation below (also available as an MP4) )shows GOES-15 (GOES-West) 0.63 µm visible (left) and 3.9 µm shortwave IR (right). In the shortwave IR images, the red pixels indicate very hot IR brightness temperatures exhibited by the fire source regions.

GOES-15 0.63 µm visible channel (left) and 3.9 µm shortwave IR channel images (right) (click to play animation)

A 1-km resolution NOAA-18 image at 21:46 UTC (below; courtesy of René Servranckx)showed the cloud-top IR brightness temperature of the pyroCu to be -30º C (dark blue color enhancement).

NOAA-18 AVHRR 0.64 µm visible (top left), 3,7 µm shortwave IR (top right), 10.8 µm IR window (bottom left) and false-color RGB composite image (bottom right).

Suomi NPP OMPS Aerosol Index images