As predicted, the temps went way up today. The reading in the van is always a few degrees high when it stretches into the extreme range, but it was 108° according to WeatherUnderground.
Which meant that the fires in the area went ballistic.
Even from Camarillo Airport, forty miles away, the pyrocumulonimbus clouds were seen growing all afternoon.
While cumulonimbus clouds are thunderstorms that grow from solar heating of moist air, forcing it to rise, cool, and form towering clouds that can go up tens of thousands of feet into the atmosphere, pyrocumulonimbus clouds get their energy from a really large fire. The fire literally creates its own weather.
Including tornadoes. In this case, fire tornadoes.
While fire tornadoes are seen near really huge fires, this is the first time there’s been one big enough, lasting long enough, and heading out on its own away from the fire so that the National Weather Service had to issue a tornado, or in this case, a fire tornado alert.
If you had that on your 2020 Apocalypse Bingo Card, you’re a winner!
