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MNTornadoGuy
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Videos/photos of the Carr Fire tornado I could find:
Pyrotornadoes (1 Viewer)
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MNTornadoGuy
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MNTornadoGuy
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MNTornadoGuy
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buckeye05
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That’s one hell of a couplet!
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MNTornadoGuy
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MNTornadoGuy
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WhirlingWx
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Anybody have thoughts to share on this? I'm no expert on how to differentiate wind from burn damage (the Facebook link has more pics as well).
buckeye05
Member
I’d infer that the heat + the wind would cause the asphalt to peel away easier than in a “normal” tornado. With that said, this is the first example of pavement scouring from a fire tornado that I’ve seen.
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MNTornadoGuy
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The fire doesn’t seem to have been that intense in that area as most of the nearby trees still have green leaves though it is likely that heat still played a role in it but it probably wasn’t that significant.
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MNTornadoGuy
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The fire tornado also produced some more impressive contextual damage even with help from the heat of the fire. Numerous trees were debarked, intense ground scouring occurred, and there was a mass >80% blowdown of trees.
buckeye05
Member
Wow! That is some seriously impressive contextual damage. We’re looking at significant ground and pavement scouring, shredding of low-lying shrubbery, plus severe debarking of trees. Honestly, it all seems to point to a violent tornado, but I’m not sure considering heat was involved to some extent. Though is it possible that EF4 level winds occurred?
I’ve noticed that other fire tornadoes, namely the Carr Fire/Redding, CA EF3, have produced deep ground scouring with significant removal of topsoil. Eiler fire tornado too. It seems like pyro-tornadoes tend to scour deeper than typical supercell tornadoes. Any idea why this is?
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MNTornadoGuy
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Probably just because those three pyrotornadoes were intense, ground scouring and other intense contextual damage is extremely rare among pyrotornadoes just as with regular tornadoes. I have not found any other cases besides those three tornadoes.
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MNTornadoGuy
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https://www.ktvu.com/news/fire-torn...t-in-california.amp?__twitter_impression=true
Massive fire wedge in California
Massive fire wedge in California
andyhb
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Looks like a firenado with the newly ignited River Fire near Colfax, CA.
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MNTornadoGuy
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Smoke whirl but not a true pyrotornado. That fire did display larger-scale rotation but it never developed a pyrocumulus. Rotation is actually pretty common within fire plumes.
Radar image (this is an excellent Twitter account for weather-oriented views of fires in the West BTW) -- read the whole thread, where he speculates on possible damage, too.
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andyhb
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MNTornadoGuy
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Wow. (This goes with the radar images in the tweets linked above.)