On 09 July 2017 a pyroCb formed in Alaska. GOES-15 detected the smoke plumes and pyroCb cloud, as well as the fires hot spot. The pyroCb cloud (~67.5º N, 141.4ºW) formed around 3:00 UTC . Starting at 2:30 UTC on 09 July, the animation below shows GOES-15 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 3:00 UTC on 09 July, shows the brightness temperature for the pyroCb cloud reaching near -40ºC at 4 UTC (green color enhancement).
GOES-15 10.7 µm IR channel images (click to play animation)
A 1-km resolution NOAA-19 AVHRR 10.8 µm Infrared Window image (below;courtesy ofRené Servranckx) revealed a minimum cloud-top IR brightness temperature of -55.5º C (red color enhancement) for the pyroCb at 2:10 UTC.
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)
Suomi NPP OMPS Aerosol Index images (courtesy of Colin Seftor) shows the transport of smoke on 08 July . This shows max AI near the source of the pyroCb.
OMPS Aerosol Index image on 08 July