GOES-15 Visible and Shortwave IR images (Click image to play animation)
On 15 September 2013, a Pyrocumulonimbus (PyroCb) was detected by GOES-15 imagery in British Columbia, Canada in the center of the province. The animation above is imagery from GOES-15 (click animation to play); the panel on the left is the visible bandwidth and the panel of the right is shortwave infrared bandwidth highlighting the fire hot-spots in black and red pixels. The PryoCb began at 23:30 UTC and continues for the next few hours until 02:30 UTC on 16 September 2013.
GOES-15 Longwave IR (Click image to play animation)
Using the GOES-15 Longwave IR imagery (above, click image to play animation), we were able to see the cloud-top temperatures associated with the PyroCb in the center of image (Latitude: 54 N, Longitude: 126 W) become colder than -40 ˚C (green color enhancement) after 23:30 UTC and continues until 02:30 UTC. The higher the clouds are, the colder the cloud top temperatures. This PyroCb gets as cold as -55˚C, which is quite impressive for a PyroCb to reach this height in the atmosphere.