On 22 June 2017 two pyroCbs formed north of Lake Baikal in eastern Russia. Himawari-8 detected the smoke plume and pyroCb cloud, as well as the fires hot spots. The first pyroCb cloud (~58.3º N, 105ºE) formed around 8:30 UTC . The second formed shortly after around 58.9º N 106.9ºE. Starting at 8:00 UTC on 22 June, the animation below shows Himawari-8 0.63 µm visible (left) and 3.9 µm shortwave IR (right) . In the shortwave IR images, the red pixels indicate very hot IR brightness temperatures exhibited by the fire source regions.
HIMAWARI-8 0.63 µm visible channel (left) and 3.9 µm shortwave IR channel images (right) (click to play animation)
In addition, using Himawari-8 10.4 μm IR channel the cloud-top IR brightness temperatures could be found. The animation below, starting at 8:00 UTC on 22 June, shows the brightness temperature for the first pyroCb cloud reaching near -60ºC around 10:30 UTC (red color enhancement). The second pyroCb reached near -40ºC (green color enhancement) near the same time.
HIMAWARI-8 10.4 µm IR channel images (click to play animation)
A 1-km resolution NOAA-19 AVHRR 10.8 µm Infrared Window image (below;courtesy of René Servranckx) revealed a minimum cloud-top IR brightness temperature of -57.7º C (red color enhancement) for the first pyroCb and -46.1º C for the second (green color enhancement) .
NOAA-19 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)