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Sir Ivan Fire pyroCumulonimbus in New South Wales, Australia

By Scott Bachmeier •

Himawari-8 0.64 µm Visible (top), 3.9 µm Shortwave Infrared (middle) and 10.4 µm Longwave Infrared Window (bottom) images [click to play animation]

Himawari-8 0.64 µm Visible (top), 3.9 µm Shortwave Infrared (middle) and 10.4 µm Longwave Infrared Window (bottom) images [click to play animation]

Himawari-8 Visible (0.64 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and Longwave Infrared Window (10.4 µm) images (above / MP4 ; zoomed-in over fire source region: GIF / MP4) showed wildfires burning in New South Wales, Australia on 12 February 2017. The larger Sir Ivan Fire near Dunedoo produced a pyroCumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud, which first cooled below the -40ºC Longwave Infrared brightness temperature “pyroCb threshold” at 0530 UTC (-47ºC) and quickly reached its minimum temperature of -56.6ºC at 0540 UTC. An animation of Himawari-8 true-color images is available here (courtesey of Dan Lindsey, RAMMB/CIRA).

Consecutive true-color images from Suomi NPP VIIRS (0402 UTC) and Aqua MODIS (0405 UTC) viewed using RealEarth (below) showed the large smoke plume about 1.5 hours prior to pyroCb development.

Suomi NPP VIIRS and Aqua MODIS true-color images [click to enlarge]

Suomi NPP VIIRS and Aqua MODIS true-color images [click to enlarge]

A high fire danger was well-anticipated across this portion of Australia:

Some ground-based photos of the pyroCb cloud:


Categories: Aqua, Fire detection, Himawari-8, MODIS, RealEarth, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Suomi NPP, VIIRS