Wildfire smoke from the Williams Flats fire, burning on the Colville Indian Reservation, triggered a thunderstorm Thursday, and for one of the only times ever, scientists were able to fly through its clouds, photograph the phenomenon from a jet and take measurements from inside.
The phenomenon, called a pyrocumulonimbus or PyroCb, “is essentially a thunderstorm that is created or driven by a wildfire,” said David Peterson, a meteorologist with the Naval Research Laboratory, giddy after Thursday’s flight. “The heating from the fire produces an updraft column and under certain favorable weather conditions, you can build a cloud on that plume.”
These high-altitude thunderheads can produce thunder and lightning, but rarely dump precipitation.