Another pyroCb formed on 06 December in Cecil Plains in Queensland, Australia. Starting at 4:00 UTC on 06 December, the animation below (also available as an MP4) shows Himawari-8 0.63 µm visible (left) and 3.9 µm shortwave IR (right) . The pyroCb cloud (~28.2º S, 151ºE) formed around 7:50 UTC. In the shortwave IR images, the red pixels indicate very hot IR brightness temperatures exhibited by the fire source regions.
Himawari-8 0.63 µm visible channel (left) and 3.9 µm shortwave IR channel images (right) (click to play animation)
In addition, the Himawari-8 10.4 μm IR channel allowed the cloud-top IR brightness temperature to be measured. The animation below, also starting at 4:00 UTC on 06 December, shows that the brightness temperature for the pyroCb cloud reached roughly -66ºC at 5:40 UTC (dark red color enhancement).
Himawari-8 10.4 µm IR channel images (click to play animation)
1-km resolution POES AVHRR images (below; courtesy of René Servranckx) showed pyroCb cloud-top IR brightness temperatures right before the major development of the pyroCb. The coldest brightness temperature was -24º C at 4:33 UTC which is an hour before the coldest brightness temperature of -66º C found on Himawari.
POES AVHRR Visible (upper left), Shortwave Infrared (upper right), Infrared Window (lower left) and false-color RGB (lower right) images