With much of the Pacific Northwest experiencing drought conditions, fires burning in Northern California and Southern Oregon led to poor air quality conditions regionally and downwind of the fires in early August. Pyrocumulus clouds, also known as "fire clouds", appear as opaque white patches hovering over darker smoke in satellite imagery and form from the intense heat of the fires (similar to cumulus clouds forming over a sun-warmed ground). The MODIS satellite views below show pyrocumulus clouds near the California/Oregon border associated with the Beaver Complex Fire and Bald Fire.
AIRS observed in near real time the rapid vertical motion associated with these pyrocumulus clouds and the injection of carbon monoxide high into the atmosphere (at least 5-6km above the surface). Once the smoke reached this height, CO is easily transported downwind as seen in the image below where the plume extends eastward into Idaho.The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) also captured smoke emanating from these fires. Observations of aerosols detected by OMPS can be viewed here and show the smoke plume transported to Idaho and Montana by August 3rd.
As of August 8th, the entire region remains under a Fire Weather Watch. With droughts continuing to be a serious problem, the threat of forest fires remains high as we continue through August.
This blog post was the combined effort of Meredith Nichols and Debra Kollonige.
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