Wildfires can intensify thunderstorms

Large wildfires can intensify distant thunderstorms thousands of miles downwind showing new simulations.

Scientists from a collection of US universities have discovered that major wildfires on the US west coast can cause more intense storms far away.

To come to this conclusion the team analyzed weather data from across the US recorded between 2010 and 2020 looking for storms or severe weather which coincided with wildfire outbreaks.

In those records, several instances of intense thunderstorms were spotted developing soon after a large forest fire.

They then created a weather model to simulate different forms of fire to see how it impacted weather. This showed that larger forest fires influence systems thousands of miles downwind.

Also noted was a growth in the size of hailstones as a result of soot which is carried into the air allowing ice to form around each particle.

Responsible for the intensification is the rise in moist air flowing across the continental US following a large fire which helps to fuel storm systems.

Forest fires also directly impact local weather with heat, ash, and soot contributing to thunderstorms and pyrocumulus clouds that form overhead.

We now see that the impact of these fires, which are growing in number each year as our climate warms, is much wider-reaching than previously known.