brettjrob Posted August 5, 2012 Share Posted August 5, 2012 I've seen a lot of odd phenomena over the years I've lived in OK, but this was a new one to me. A wildfire started yesterday (8/3/12) afternoon about 12 SE of Norman and rapidly grew out of control. The 4pm ob at OKC was 111/47 for an RH of 12%, along with SW winds gusting to 23 mph. Within a couple hours, the fire was so large that the associated updraft began producing periodic Cu above the smoke plume. This continued for several hours until around sunset. At times there were 2-3 distinct turrets visible, as the old ones advected off to the east and new ones appeared atop the plume. Here are just a few quick shots. The first was around 3:30pm, while the second and third were around 5:30pm. It was actually quite a bit more impressive in between. The fire is still burning as of 10pm tonight, 8/4, and we had a few more pyrocu this afternoon. A weak front should move through within the next few hours, and the NNE winds behind that may help firefighters by pushing it back toward already-charred areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-L-E-K Posted August 5, 2012 Share Posted August 5, 2012 Nice, I remember seeing some pics of these from Northern Wisconsin (or somewhere similar) last summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stebo Posted August 5, 2012 Share Posted August 5, 2012 Nice, I remember seeing some pics of these from Northern Wisconsin (or somewhere similar) last summer. Yeah I have a good picture of these in a photo album from my Yellowstone trip about 10 years ago. Nice picts Brettjrob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brettjrob Posted August 6, 2012 Author Share Posted August 6, 2012 Thanks guys. There are definitely far more impressive photos and video from the large wildfires you see out west in the mountains with some frequency, but I believe this was relatively unusual for OK. Here's a timelapse shot facing east from the roof of the National Weather Center by a NOAA employee, which provides a much better overview of what happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aslkahuna Posted August 6, 2012 Share Posted August 6, 2012 During the Aspen fire in 2003 in AZ the pyrocumulus actually became a pyroCB with lightning and when the tower collapsed it sent out a downburst of hurricane force winds. The pyro from the Florida fire in 2005 in the Santa Ritas topped out at over 35k. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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