{"id":65878,"date":"2025-07-10T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=65878"},"modified":"2025-07-12T02:49:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T02:49:27","slug":"wildfire-in-ontario-produces-a-large-pyrocumulonimbus-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/65878","title":{"rendered":"Wildfire in Ontario produces a large pyrocumulonimbus cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"

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GOES-19 Infrared images + Fire Mask derived product [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>10-minute Full Disk scan GOES-19 (GOES-East)<\/em> Infrared images combined with the Fire Mask derived product (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed a wildfire in western Ontario (north of Red Lake, CYRL) that produced a large pyrocumulonimbus<\/strong><\/a> (pyroCb) cloud beginning at 1930 UTC<\/strong><\/a> — when cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures first reached -40\u00baC, darker shades of blue — on 10 July 2025<\/strong><\/a>. The wildfire was intensifying in advance of an approaching warm front<\/strong><\/a> (SW winds at Red Lake were gusting to 19-20 knots<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n

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GOES-19 Infrared image at 2150 UTC on 10 July, with a cursor sample of the coldest pyroCb cloud-top infrared brightness temperature [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>The pyroCb — which eventually merged with other nearby meteorological thunderstorms — exhibited cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures as cold as -67.75\u00baC at 2150 UTC (above)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

In a plot of rawinsonde data from Pickle Lake, Ontario (CYPL) at 0000 UTC on 11 July (below)<\/strong><\/em>, the -67.75\u00baC cloud-top temperature corresponded to an overshoot of the Equilibrium Level (EL) \/ Tropopause of nearly 1 km.<\/p>\n

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Plot of rawinsonde data from Pickle Lake, Ontario at 0000 UTC on 11 July [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>This pyroCb cloud produced a notable amount of lightning (beginning at 1950 UTC<\/strong><\/a>), as seen from overlays of GOES-19 GLM<\/strong><\/a> Flash Extent Density and Flash Points (below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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GOES-19 Infrared images + Fire Mask derived product, with an overlay of GLM Flash Extent Density and GLM Flash Points [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>A toggle between NOAA-21 VIIRS GeoColor RGB images (with an overlay of NOAA-21 VIIRS Fire Radiative Power) at 1755 UTC and 1943 UTC is shown below (source<\/strong><\/a>). The later image displayed the pyroCb cloud shortly after its formation, as it had begun drifting eastward away from the large wildfire.<\/p>\n

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NOAA-21 VIIRS GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of NOAA-21 VIIRS Fire Radiative Power, at 1755 UTC and 1943 UTC on 10 July [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10-minute Full Disk scan GOES-19 (GOES-East) Infrared images combined with the Fire Mask derived product (above) showed a wildfire in western Ontario (north of Red Lake, CYRL) that produced a large pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud beginning at 1930 UTC — when cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures first reached -40\u00baC, darker shades of blue — on 10 July […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":65879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,76,159,30,131,53,45,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fire-detection","category-glm","category-goes-19","category-lightning","category-noaa-21","category-real-earth","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65878","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=65878"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65909,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65878\/revisions\/65909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}