Pyrocumulonimbus clouds in the Northwest Territories, as detected by GOES-18 and GOES-16
Visible images (0.64 µm, top), Shortwave Infrared images (3.9 µm, middle) and Infrared Window images (10.3 µm, bottom), from GOES-18 (left) and GOES-16 (right), from 1930 UTC on 23 May to 0300 UTC on 24 May [click to play animated GIF]
In a comparison of Day Land Cloud Fire RGB images from the 2 satellites — created using Geo2Grid (below), the wildfire’s thermal signature (shades of pink to red) was often obscured from the far western view of GOES-18 by pyro-convection; however, during many of those instances the thermal signature could be seen in GOES-16 imagery (since that satellite was positioned farther to the east, at 104.7 W longitude, during its annual test period).
Day Land Cloud Fire RGB images from GOES-18 (left) and GOES-16 (right), from 2000 UTC on 23 May to 0100 UTC on 24 May [click to play MP4 animation]