Lightning is Shooting Out of the Smoke Plume from the Hog Fire

Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse…
As Lassen County’s Hog Fire continues to send massive amounts of smoke into the Northern California air, it’s suffocating nearby towns. On top of that, apparently the smoke plume has developed its own weather system, possibly entering this story into the Top 10 of Craziest Headlines of 2020.
On Monday evening, an atmospheric scientist specializing in wildfire plumes named Neil Lareau tweeted that the smoke over the Hog Fire had turned purocumulonimbus, meaning that it could develop its own weather:
Here is the visible satellite view of the #HogFire #PyroCb. Low angle light is starting to cast the upper plume into relief. #CAwx #CAfire pic.twitter.com/nQkHKmrRU4
— Neil Lareau (@nplareau) July 21, 2020
Of course, anyone who read that Tweet was probably suspicious, so the National Weather Service came in from the top rope to confirm the claim and announce that lightning had been detected from the smoke plume:
Lightning also detected with the column in the last 20 minutes. #HogFire https://t.co/bCSjBHiwEf
— NWS Reno (@NWSReno) July 21, 2020
The Wikipedia definition of a pyrocumulus is:
produced by the intense heating of the air from the surface. The intense heat induces convection, which causes the air mass to rise to a point of stability, usually in the presence of moisture…
Pyrocumuli contain severe turbulence, manifesting as strong gusts at the surface, which can exacerbate a large conflagration. A large pyrocumulus…may also produce lightning. A pyrocumulus which produces lightning is actually a type of cumulonimbus, a thundercloud, and is called pyrocumulonimbus.
As of Monday night, the Hog Fire has burned 5,800 acres in Lassen County and has been supplemented by the nearby Gold Fire, which has burned 300 acres and forced evacuations in nearby campgrounds. While the recent fire news has been scary and a bad sign for the fire season to come in NorCal, the fact that our fires are developing there own weather systems is just plain nuts.
A big shoutout to the firefighters out there keeping NorCal residents safe during these fires. Also, keep your eye out for lightning in the area.
This is actually pretty common with big fires. Surprising how many people are unaware of this phenomenon. You have a typo, BTW. It’s PYRO. Not puro. (First graph.)
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you writing this post and the rest of the website is also really good.
Hi there, this weekend is nice in support of me, because this time i am reading this enormous informative article
here at my home.
Great post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed!
Very useful info specially the last part 🙂 I care for such information a
lot. I was seeking this particular info for a very long time.
Thank you and best of luck.
I think what you published made a bunch of sense. However, what about this?
what if you were to write a awesome title?
I ain’t suggesting your information isn’t solid., but what if you
added something that grabbed folk’s attention? I mean Lightning is
Shooting Out of the Smoke Plume from the Hog Fire – Active NorCal is kinda vanilla.
You ought to peek at Yahoo’s front page and note how they create article titles to grab viewers to open the links.
You might add a video or a related pic or two to get people interested about what you’ve got to say.
In my opinion, it would make your posts a little livelier.
Hey there! I know this is kinda off topic but I’d figured I’d ask.
Would you be interested in exchanging links or maybe guest writing a blog article or vice-versa?
My website goes over a lot of the same topics as yours and I think we could greatly benefit from each other.
If you’re interested feel free to shoot me an email.
I look forward to hearing from you! Excellent blog by the way!