{"id":29366,"date":"2018-08-17T23:59:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T23:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=29366"},"modified":"2018-08-20T21:01:11","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T21:01:11","slug":"wildfires-in-british-columbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/29366","title":{"rendered":"Wildfires in British Columbia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GOES-16<\/a>

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 \u00b5m, left)<\/em> and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m, right)<\/em> images [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>A 2-panel comparison of GOES-16 (GOES-East)<\/em> “Red” Visible (0.64 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) images (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed the smoke plumes and thermal anomalies or “hot spots” (darker black to red pixels)<\/em> associated with a flare-up of wildfires in western British Columbia on 17 August 2018<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

A sequence of Shortwave Infrared (3.7 \u00b5m) images from Terra \/ Aqua MODIS and Suomi NPP \/ NOAA-20 VIIRS (below)<\/strong><\/em> revealed the diurnal changes in areal coverage and intensity of the thermal signature of the fires.<\/p>\n

\"Shortwave<\/a>

Shortwave Infrared (3.7 \u00b5m)<\/em> images from Terra \/ Aqua MODIS and Suomi NPP \/ NOAA-20 VIIRS [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Toggles between Visible and Shortwave Infrared images from Terra MODIS (1912 UTC), NOAA-20 VIIRS (1950 UTC) ans Suomi NPP VIIRS (2129 UTC) are shown below (note: the NOAA-20 images are incorrectly labeled as Suomi NPP)<\/em>. It is interesting to note the impact that the smoke plume had on the air temperature at Quesnel (CYQZ<\/strong><\/a>) — because the smoke layer was optically dense enough (VIIRS True Color image<\/strong><\/a>) to significantly reduce incoming solar radiation, the temperature was as much as 14-18\u00baF (8-10\u00baC) cooler than Prince George (CYXS<\/strong><\/a>) to the north and Williams Lake (CYWL<\/strong><\/a>) to the south.<\/p>\n

\"Terra<\/a>

Terra MODIS Visible (0.65 \u00b5m)<\/em> and Shortwave Infrared (3.7 \u00b5m)<\/em> images at 1912 UTC [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>

\"NOAA-20<\/a>

NOAA-20 VIIRS Visible (0.64 \u00b5m)<\/em> and Shortwave Infrared (3.74 \u00b5m)<\/em> images at 1950 UTC [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP VIIRS Visible (0.64 \u00b5m)<\/em> and Shortwave Infrared (3.74 \u00b5m)<\/em> images at 2129 UTC [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Farther to the east in Alberta, thick smoke caused very poor air quality in cities like Edmonton and Grande Prairie (photo 1<\/strong><\/a> | photo 2<\/strong><\/a>). Daily composites of Suomi NPP VIIRS True Color RGB images from 11 August to 17 August (below)<\/strong><\/em> revealed the transport of smoke across British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n

\"Daily<\/a>

Daily composites of Suomi NPP VIIRS True Color RGB images (with VIIRS fire detections in red), 11-17 August [click to play MP4 | Animated GIF<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>A time series of surface reports from Edmonton, Alberta covering the period 14-17 August (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed that smoke restricted the surface visibility there to 1.5 miles on 15 August<\/strong><\/a> and 17<\/strong> August<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Time<\/a>

Time series of surface reports from Edmonton, Alberta during the period 14-17 August [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n

===== 19 August Update =====<\/strong><\/p>\n

* GOES-17 images shown here are preliminary and non-operational *<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"GOES-17<\/a>

GOES-17 Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 \u00b5m, left)<\/em> and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m, right)<\/em> images [click to play 81 Mbyte MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>A 2-panel comparison of GOES-17 Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) images during the 7-day period of 13-19 August (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed the diurnal changes in thermal signatures of the ongoing British Columbia wildfires. The nighttime thermal signatures seen on the 2.24 \u00b5m images (brighter white pixels)<\/em> result from the fact that this spectral band is located close to the peak emitted radiance of very hot features such as active volcanoes or large fires (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Plots<\/a>

Plots of Spectral Response Functions for ABI Bands 5, 6 and 7 [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 2-panel comparison of GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 \u00b5m) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m) images (above) showed the smoke plumes and thermal anomalies or “hot spots” (darker black to red pixels) associated with a flare-up of wildfires in western British Columbia on 17 August 2018. A sequence of Shortwave Infrared (3.7 \u00b5m) images from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":29368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,70,6,74,80,12,78,45,49,71,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-quality","category-aqua","category-fire-detection","category-goes-16","category-goes-17","category-modis","category-noaa-20","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-suomi_npp","category-terra","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29366"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29385,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29366\/revisions\/29385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}