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Pyrocumulonimbus clouds in Western Australia

By Scott Bachmeier •

10-minute Himawari-8 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, left), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, middle) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.4 µm, right) images, from 0400-0800 UTC on 17 November [click to play animated GIF]

10-minute Full Disk scan JMA Himawari-8 Visible, Shortwave Infrared and Infrared Window images (above) showed 2 pulses of pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) clouds that were spawned by a large bushfire in Western Australia on 17 November 2025. The pyroCb cloud pulses exhibited a cloud-top 10.4 µm infrared brightness temperature (IRBT) of -40ºC or colder (denoted by darker blue pixels) — a necessary condition to be classified as a pyroCb (since that temperature assures that heterogeneous glaciation has occurred at the cloud top). Note that the pyroCb cloud tops appeared as darker shades of gray in the Shortwave Infrared images, due to enhanced solar reflection off the smaller smoky ice crystals.

Himawari-8 Fire Temperature RGB + Infrared Window images viewed using RealEarth (below) indicated that the large bushfire was burning near the Zyotdorp Nature Reserve.

10-minute Himawari-8 Fire Temperature RGB + Infrared Window images, from 0400-0800 UTC on 17 November [click to play MP4 animation]

Categories: Fire detection, Himawari-8, RealEarth, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images