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Pyrocumulonimbus clouds in the Northwest Territories

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-18 Day Land Cloud Fire RGB (top left), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, top right), “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) + Fire Temperature derived product (bottom left) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) + Fire Power derived product (bottom right) [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

GOES-18 (GOES-West) Day Land Cloud Fire RGB, Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm), “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) and Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Power derived product — Fire Power is a component of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm FDCA — (above) showed thermal signatures associated with a wildfire that produced a pair of pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) clouds in Canada’s Northwest Territories late in the day on 21 July 2023.

At 2300 UTC, the 3.9 µm infrared brightness temperature reached 90.85C, with a Fire Power value of 3623 MW (below). Located at a latitude of 67.35N, this wildfire was only about 40 miles south of the Arctic coast.

Cursor sampling of GOES-18 imagery at 2300 UTC [click to enlarge]

The 2 pyroCb clouds began to form at 2340 UTC and 0010 UTC — when pyrocumulus jumps were evident in the RGB and Visible images. Cloud-top 10.3 µm infrared brightness temperatures eventually were as cold as -54.7C.

Categories: Arctic, Fire detection, GOES-18, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images