Monitoring wildfire smoke plumes and clouds with portable weather radar to nowcast hazards associated with extreme wildfires

Extreme and megafires demonstrate a significant interplay between fire dynamics and the surrounding atmosphere, resulting in erratic fire behavior, rapid fire spread, long-range transport of burning embers, and pyro-convective activity that leads to the formation of pyrocumulus and/or pyrocumulonimbus clouds.

These fire-induced clouds play a crucial role, generating strong updrafts and downdrafts, causing plume collapse, and carrying particles like firebrands downwind while also lifting smoke particles into the stratosphere. Monitoring these clouds poses challenges; satellites offer limited resolution and passive sensing, while ground-based weather radars provide the best means to track their entire lifecycle, especially portable systems deployed at proximity of the fire and offering better resolution and accuracy. These systems are capable of identifying specific features and phenomena, such as rotors and vorticity, pyrometeors and the formation of condensation.

Our study presents observations from portable weather radars captured from various Australian wildfires. We introduce machine learning-based techniques to process radar data, aiming to provide actionable intelligence on wildfire-related hazards.