The East Troublesome Fire in Colorado expanded greatly on 21 October (click here for more information), and produced pyrocumulus clouds.  NOAA-20 overflew the fire at around 1930 UTC (linked-to overpass map from this site) on 21 October, and NUCAPS profiles, shown above, diagnosed the stability of the mid- and upper-troposphere.  The toggle below between the NOAA-20 VIIRS Visible (0.64 µm) and Infrared (11.45 µm) imagery and NUCAPS Sounding availability... Read More

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.35 µm) images (above) showed Tropical Depression 27 as further intensified to become Tropical Storm Epsilon at 15 UTC on 19 October 2020. While the low-level circulation (LLC) generally remained exposed during that time, deep convection was increasing around the LLC (including a small convective burst near the... Read More

Low-level water vapor imagery, above, from early morning on 17 October 2020, shows the characteristics of strong low-level winds in the lee of the Colorado Rockies, namely a warm trench and herringbone-like structures that suggest turbulent flow. This region is near the Cameron Peak fire, a long-lived conflagration to the west of... Read More

Strong winds on 14 October invigorated the Cameron Peak fire to the west of Fort Collins, producing an extensive smoke plume.  The Day Land Cloud Fire RGB, above, includes the near-infrared 2.25 µm channel (GOES-16 Band 6) that shows the active fire in red and the ‘Veggie’ Band at 0.87 µm (a... Read More