Since Andrew posted this message a week ago, I have been watching out for deep convection above the fires... The fires have tended to be in the dry, strong northerlies, and I thought it was not happening.

However, have a look at the GMS enhanced IR images for 21 UTC and 23 UTC this morning (reproduced on my webpage).  You'll see a very bright spot over the northeastern tip of Victoria, the location of the fires, which may be indicative of deep convection being caused (?, triggered) by the heat and smoke.

John McB

Andrew Tupper

Thanks, John.

We've been following the original smoke around the world; it's now hard to see, but somewhere just west of Africa.  I've put an animation of the NASA TOMS images at:
http://arist.edu.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/andrewt/events/bushfires/TOMSanimation.gif
(local copy here)

I'd also like to ask a really dumb question, with apologies to all the operational forecasters who know infinitely more about these recent events  but have been a tad busy; what have the dust storms been like lately?  The reason I ask is that, looking at a GMS animation of the 18th, processed for dust:
http://arist.edu.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/andrewt/events/bushfires/bushfire.gif
(local copy here)

There appears to be dust storm (green pixels) moving north of, and possibly into, the bushfire blow-up.  Is that right?  How widespread have dust  storms been?  I'm wondering how much of the aerosols on the TOMS images is dust rather than smoke.

Forgive me for the bandwidth waste.....

Andrew Tupper
 

Gary Weymouth: (emailed at 1345 Eastern Australian time, 30 January)

Subject: pyroCb on East sale radar?

Have a look

John McBride

I have put the East sale radar images up on my web-page.  There have been arguments here in BMRC as to whether it is a fire-generated Cb or rather an aimass Cb in ahead of the rain-band, helped by the uplift over the mounatins.

 I firmly believe it is a "Pyro-Cb", my reasoning being that everything else on the sequence of images moves (eastward), whereas the yellow area associated with this CB is stationary.

John McB

P.s.  I tried saving the radar Java-loop but  failed in transferring it across to my web page.  I can save the individual images as gifs... what software can I use to make a "loop-gif"?

East Sale Radar:  128 km radius images: 01:40 and 01:50 UTC.  The suspected fire-generated thunderstorm is in the north-east quadrant of the image

A longer sequence of the same radar at over a 521 km scan range:   animation

A sequence an hour or so later:    animation

Milton Speer (14.27 Eastern Australian Daylight Time)

There's pyroCB over Jindabyne too. Shows up on the Canberra radar from
02UTC to 0220UTC.

John McBride
Milton,

 I have been at a meeting, so missed this one... id you happen to save
the radar images?

John Mcb

Milton Speer
I've saved one or two images but they should also be still there on
current images. Looks like a NSW fire and a Vic fire have joined up on the
border a bit further south too (0410UTC).
I'm in Jindabyne where it's blowing a gale and smoke, no embers though.
Just had a report, as I speak, of thunder near Delegate which is near that
reflectivity I was assuming was just smoke..

John McBride:
For the current fire-map:

 Andrew Watkins
John,

Not 100% sure, but check out
http://169.154.196.76/gallery/?2003025-0125/Australia.A2003025.0335.1km.jpg  (local copy here)
If you look at the high res version it looks "Cb'ish" over the mountains (though I'm no expert...)

John McBride
>From Andrew watkins....

Looking at the image, I think he is correct.... Look particularly at the
southernmost mass of fires (red- squares).. the mass of smoke immediately
to the southeast looks like it has a lot of embedded convection.

John McB

Gary Weymouth

Hi John et al,

Alan Wain was looking at some hysplit output which nicely matched smoke plumes with radar images.

An experimental cloud albedo product for 2:30 UTC from GMS is at ttp://hornet.ho.bom.gov.au/gmsweb/current.dir/vic.dir/recent_gif.dir/vicnswclalb_200301300315g.gif
(local copy here)
This has the cloud pretty bright, so fairly thick. Smoke alone is much duller. IR is coldish.

Gary

Andrew Tupper

 I firmly believe it is a "Pyro-Cb", my reasoning being that everything
>else on the sequence of images moves (eastward),
>whereas the yellow area associated with this CB is stationary.
Hang on John - a continuous source will produce a stationary echo, but a CB
should move (more or less) with the steering flow regardless of the
generating mechanism, shouldn't it?

Gary Weymouth
I also consider these to be pyrocu (or Cb in case of precip by definition) for reasons previously stated by John and others,
and also because it is unlikely that the 3 separate hysplit-modelled and satellite-observed smoke plumes
just happened to match 3 isolated 'airmasses' to produce Cb in those locations only.

(pyrocu is a common even if not WMO-approved term - bushfire cumulus is common)

Having said that, one would presume the airmass has to be capable of supporting Cb given whatever kickstart is provided
by the fire (? convection ? moisture from burning ? condensation nuclei).  But then that's all part of 'pyrocumulus' by definition.

As far as I know, 'industro-cumulus' is also a common term -eg from latrobe valley power station cooling towers.

Gary

Tony Bannister
>Looking at the image, I think he is correct.... Look particularly at the
>southernmost mass of fires (red- squares).. the mass of smoke immediately
>to the southeast looks like it has a lot of embedded convection.
John et al,
Talking to Peter Billing at DSE it was a pyro CB started from fires back upstream, lightning strikes from it caused new fires which they weren't counting on. DSE/CFA have done pretty well today but they desperately need good rain, realistically that is the only thing that will stop the fires apart from running out of fuel.

John McBride

This is fascinating.... we heard on this morning's news that several new spot fires broke out overnight, caused by lightning.... Tony's report is that the lightning itself came from the pyro-Cb.

Looking for confirmation of this, I went to the NMOC chart discussion webpage http://nmocrtop.ho.bom.gov.au/srco/chart_discussion/index.html)
where they have a link to a Java loop of GPATS strikes superimposed on the IR satellite image (under the "Overview" heading).  (Loop for that day here)

 It looks to me like the only GPATS-recorded lightning strikes we had yesterday were in fact within the pyro-Cb region... so Tony's report seems to be correct.

John Mcb