PyroCu in Wyoming

On 18 July a pyroCu formed in Wyoming. GOES-15 detected the smoke plumes and pyroCu cloud, as well as the fire hot spot. The pyroCu (43.2º N, 110.5º W) formed from the Cliff Creek fire around 21:00 UTC .  Starting at 20:30 UTC on 18 July, the animation below (also available as an MP4) )shows GOES-15 (GOES-West) 0.63 µm visible (top), 3.9 µm shortwave IR (middle) and 10.7 µm IR window images (bottom). In the shortwave IR images, the red pixels indicate very hot IR brightness temperatures exhibited by the fire source regions.

GOES-15 0.63 µm visible channel (left) and 3.9 µm shortwave IR channel images (right) (click to play animation)

A 1-km resolution NOAA-18 image at 21:46 UTC (below; courtesy of René Servranckx)showed the cloud-top IR brightness temperature of the pyroCu to be -30º C (dark blue color enhancement).

NOAA-18 AVHRR 0.64 µm visible (top left), 3,7 µm shortwave IR (top right), 10.8 µm IR window (bottom left) and false-color RGB composite image (bottom right). [click to enlarge]