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Castle Fire pyrocumulonimbus cloud in California

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-17 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images  [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images  [click to play animation | MP4]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-17 (GOES-West) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (above) showed the formation of a pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud that was spawned by the Castle Fire in California on 23 August 2020.

The coldest pyroCb cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were around -50ºC –according to 00 UTC rawinsonde data from Las Vegas, Nevada (below) indicated that this temperature corresponded to altitudes around 12 km.

Plot of 00 UTC rawinsonde data from Las Vegas, NV [click to enlarge]

Plot of 00 UTC rawinsonde data from Las Vegas, NV [click to enlarge]

Categories: Fire detection, GOES-17