On 25 July a pyroCb formed from the Lava Mountain Fire in Wyoming. GOES-15 detected the smoke plumes and pyroCu cloud, as well as the fire hot spot. The pyroCb (43.6º N, 109.9º W) formed around 21:30 UTC . Starting at 20:30 UTC on 25 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)
In addition, using GOES-15 10.7 μm IR channel the cloud-top IR brightness temperature could be found. The animation below, starting at 22:00 UTC on 25 July, shows the brightness temperature for the pyroCu was -32ºC around 23:45 UTC (dark blue color enhancement).
GOES-15 10.7 µm IR channel images (click to play animation)
A 1-km resolution NOAA-19 image at 22:07 UTC (below; courtesy of René Servranckx)showed the cloud-top IR brightness temperature of the pyroCu to be -39.7º C (blue color enhancement).
NOAA-19 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).
However, this pyroCu was found to be a pyroCb using AVHRR 12.0 µm IR imagery. At 22:04 UTC this pyroCu reached pyroCb status by having a brightness temperature of -40º C. Shown on the image below as a green color enhancement.
AVHRR 12.0 µm IR image
On 26 July this fire produced another pyroCb. Suomi NPP VIIRS was used to show the brightness temperature (11.45 µm) and provide visible (0.64 µm) imagery. The image below shows the pyroCb reaching -49 º C (green color enhancement) at 19:05 UTC.
Suomi NPP VIIRS Visible (0.64 μm) and Infrared Window (11.45 μm) images (click to animate)
OMPS Aerosol Index images below (courtesy of Colin Seftor) show the transport of smoke on 26 July. The maximum AI index was found to be 5.1 at 43.5 N 109W around 20:47 UTC (center image). This is near the fire that produced the pyroCb.
OMPS Aerosol Index image on 26 July