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Smoke from wildfires in Northern California

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-17 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 (GOES-West) True Color RGB images created using Geo2Grid (above) showed the diurnal variation of smoke from the Dixie Fire, Beckwourth Complex, Caldor Fire and Tamarack Fire in Northern California on 25 August 2021. Early in the day, smoke from the previous day of fire activity that had settled into valleys was evident — but as daytime heating continued, this valley smoke was ventilated and mixed to higher altitudes, with new smoke plumes eventually developing as the fire activity ramped up again. Occasional pyrocumulus clouds were produced by the larger, hotter fires.

===== 26 August Update =====

In GOES-17 True Color RGB images on 26 August (below), less cloudiness allowed a clearer view of the smoke from these wildfires.

GOES-17 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

In a toggle between Suomi NPP VIIRS True Color RGB and False Color RGB images (below), the large wildfire burn scars appear as shades of reddish-brown in the False Color image (these VIIRS images were downloaded and processed by the SSEC/CIMSS Direct Broadcast ground station). At that time, dense smoke from the Caldor Fire was restricting surface visibility to 3/4 mile at South Lake Tahoe, California.

Suomi NPP VIIRS True Color RGB and False Color RGB images [click to enlarge]

Categories: Air quality, Fire detection, GOES-16, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Suomi NPP, VIIRS