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As a Vast Swath of Australia Burns, the View From Space is Truly Frightening
So far, Australia’s bushfires have scorched more than 4,000 square miles — an area greater than ten times the size of New York City.
With hot and dry conditions predicted for weeks to come, there’s not much relief in sight. And now, “catastrophic fire danger” is forecast for Western Australia on Sunday, Nov. 17.
The Australian bushfires have been so extensive and intense that pollution from the smoke has blown more than 6,000 miles across the Pacific to South America. Keep reading to see an animation tracking aerosols from the fires blowing across the Pacific Ocean.
Read MoreNine days of California infernos, as seen from space
The Kincade Fire has been the most destructive of California infernos so far this year. But other damaging blazes have erupted too, including six in the Los Angeles area alone.
You can watch the evolution of these blazes in the animation above. I created it using imagery acquired by a trio of spacecraft: NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, and the Suomi-NPP satellite.
Make sure to click on the animation in order to enlarge it enough to get the best possible view.
The animation starts on Oct. 23. On this day, no fires are visible. It then runs through Nov. 1. Look for bluish smoke plumes as well as red dots marking areas where the satellites detected the heat signature from fire.
In the animation, the hot spots and smoke plume from the Kincade Fire can be seen clearly in the north starting on Oct. 24. Over ensuing days, the blaze waxes and wanes and then blows up again, controlled in large measure by weather and also the heroic efforts of firefighters to contain it.
As of Nov. 2, the Kincade Fire has destroyed 372 structures and scorched 121 square miles. That’s an area approaching half the size of New York City. The fire is now 72 percent contained.
The Tick Fire near Santa Clarita north of Los Angeles also ignited on Oct. 24th. Red dots indicative of heat from the blaze become visible in the lower right portion of the animation on the next day. This blaze went on to destroy 27 structures.
Moonrise at sunrise as photographed from the International Space Station
I spotted this serenely beautiful photo of the crescent moon rising above the limb of the Earth at sunrise on Twitter. I was so taken with it that I just had to share it.
It’s undated, but this stunning moonrise at sunrise photo was photographed recently by NASA astronaut Christina Koch from the International Space Station.
On Oct. 18, Koch made history with her fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, when the two accomplished the first all-female spacewalk. They spent seven hours outside the space station, fixing a failed power controller.
As photographed by Koch, the blue luminous envelope of Earth’s atmosphere seems tenuously thin. This helps me grasp how we humans, a seemingly puny species, could actually alter the makeup of the atmosphere in a way that fundamentally alters the climatic life support system of our planet.
Seen from this perspective, the atmosphere doesn’t seem quite so limitless as it does when we simply look up from Earth’s surface.
Koch, 40, has been aboard the space station since mid-March and is scheduled to remain there through February. That would make for 328 days in space, which would be a record for the longest single spaceflight for a woman.
Say hello to Hurricane Pablo, the northernmost hurricane to form so late and so far north on record
A late October tropical storm spinning in the North Atlantic entered the record books today when it strengthened into a strange little hurricane.
Say hello to Hurricane Pablo, seen in the image above acquired by NASA’s Terra satellite.
As of about 5 p.m. EST in the U.S., the tiny storm had attained maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour, qualifying it for Category 1 status. That makes makes it the strongest hurricane to form this far north in the Atlantic at this late date in the calendar year since 1894, according to Colorado State University hurricane expert Philip Klotzbach.
Read MoreAs the Kincade Fire was whipped by hurricane force winds, here’s what it looked like from space
Early this morning, winds gusted to 93 miles per hour near California’s Kincade Fire.
A Category 1 hurricane is characterized by sustained winds of 74 to 95 miles per hour.
The animation of satellite images above shows the effect of those fierce winds, starting before dawn and carrying on into the daylight hours. It consists of visual and infrared data captured on Sunday, Oct. 27 by the GOES-17 satellite, allowing us to see both the smoke and areas of active burning.
The GOES series of satellites are perched 22,236 miles above Earth’s surface, in geosynchronous orbit.
Here’s another view from space, captured by GOES-16, which has a perspective to the east of its sister satellite:
“Historic” wind event could whip California’s Kincade blaze into a raging firestorm
Northern California is bracing for winds forecast to gust as high as 80 miles per hour on Sunday morning — posing extreme wildfire risks in an area primed to burn.
“A potentially historic, long duration, extremely critical offshore wind event is forecast to occur beginning around 8pm tonight and persist through early Monday,” according to the National Weather Service. These winds threaten what the weather service describes as “explosive fire growth potential.”
Thanks to this dire situation, a dramatic expansion of the Kincade Fire — now nearly twice the size of Manhattan — is in the offing. And any new ignitions could be whipped into new infernos.
Read MoreHurricane Lorenzo Defies Forecasts, Strengthening Into a Monster and Setting an All-time Record
On Thursday, Sept. 26, the National Hurricane Center described Hurricane Lorenzo as “one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes of record for the central tropical Atlantic, with the only comparable hurricane [near there] in recent times being Gabrielle of 1989.”
Moving into the weekend, it was forecast to weaken. But then it shocked hurricane experts.
While churning over abnormally warm waters on Saturday evening, Lorenzo defied forecasts and strengthened even further. Howling with winds as high as 160 miles per hour, it became a Category 5 storm.
That makes it the single strongest hurricane ever observed that far north as well as that far east in the Atlantic Ocean.
Read MoreA Possibly Historic Snow Storm in the West, Plus a Heat Wave in the East — What’s Going On?
Historic snow and a heat wave? That’s what a downright loopy jet stream pattern is bringing to large parts of the United States.
Parts of the Northern Rockies are bracing for what the National Weather Service in Missoula, MT is describing as an “historic winter storm this weekend,” with up to five feet of snow forecast. (Click on the graphic above for details.)
Although this part of the United States is no stranger to early autumn snow, it’s not usually measured in feet.
Meanwhile, parts of the U.S. East Coast are continuing to experience temperatures well above normal for this time of year — and conditions are forecast to heat up even more, potentially to record-high levels next week.
With a stubborn “heat dome” parked overhead, the Southeast has already been enduring one of its hottest Septembers on record. And the strength of the dome is forecast to intensify next week to a point that occurs just one day every 10 to 30 years during this time of year, according to an analysis by meteorologist Rob Elvington of WAAY TV in Huntsville, AL
This graphic helps explain what’s going on:
Read MoreArctic Sea Ice Plunges to Second Lowest Extent on Record
Thanks to human-caused warming, an area of ice three times the size of Texas went missing this year
Arctic sea ice shriveled so much during this summer’s now-finished melt season that it has reached the second lowest extent on record.
A sensitive indicator of human-caused warming, the low extent of the region’s floating lid of ice effectively tied with 2007 and 2016 for second place in satellite records extending back 40 years, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
“Why three ties? It’s probably just blind dumb luck,” says Mark Serreze, Director of the NSIDC. “But clearly the ice is not recovering.”
The dreaded “blob” may be back in the Pacific Ocean
A gigantic area of super-warm water has formed again off the U.S. West Coast, threatening impacts on weather and wildlife
Five years ago, a gigantic cauldron of abnormally warm water in the Pacific Ocean wreaked havoc on marine ecosystems and contributed to drought along the western coast of North America.
Dubbed “The Blob,” it triggered the largest and most toxic algae bloom the region had ever seen, as well as mass die offs of sea mammals and fish.
Now, a new blobby warm patch has quickly formed in the same area.
Stretching across a vast territory — from Alaska to Baja, and from the West Coast to beyond Hawaii — this Son of Blob is almost the same size as the original one. In fact, it’s “the second largest marine heatwave in terms of area in the northern Pacific Ocean in the last 40 years, after ‘the Blob,'” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“It’s on a trajectory to be as strong as the prior event,” says NOAA research scientist Andrew Leising.
Read More
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