The cloud that is seen streaking away from the Minnesota Fires in the image below is a ‘pyrocumulonimbus’ cloud, formed as a result of the fires beneath it.
According to the American Meteorological Society’s Glossary of Meteorology, a pyrocumulus is “a cumulus cloud formed by a rising thermal from a fire, or enhanced by buoyant plume emissions from an industrial combustion process.”
This image was taken by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra satellite on September 12, 2011 at 17:05 UTC (11:05 a.m. MDT).
Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Joshua S Hill
I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, a liberal left-winger, and believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I’m a 27-year-old author and writer from Melbourne, Australia. My first book is in the "looking for an agent" phase right now while I write my second. I also review fantasy books over at Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk). I love words with a passion, both creating them and reading them.
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