Elevated smoke levels have been present in the upper Midwestern United States for well over a week, but recent synoptic-scale pattern shifts have started to bring in clearer (albeit warmer and more humid) air from the south. The following animation shows GOES-19-observed aerosol optical depth (AOD) for 1400 UTC (9:00... Read More
5-minute PACUS sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) Clean Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images and Red Visible (0.64 µm) images with an overlay of the FDCA Fire Mask derived product (above) showed that the Bronco Fire in southeast Arizona produced a pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud as it was experiencing very active to extreme fire behavior... Read More
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) Fire Detection polygons (above) showed the rapid growth of the Cram Fire in central Oregon during the day on 14 July 2025. Strong westerly winds helped to transport a dense veil of smoke eastward. This wildfire had started... Read More
True Color imagery over western Japan, above, from three JPSS Satellites (from the NASA Worldview site) show a region with a hazy signature that appears to originate over Kyushu’s main cities of Kumamoto and Fukuoka. Winds at this time are relatively light, as evidenced by the NOAA-21 image, shown below, that includes a dark... Read More
