Chinook

Ash is falling from the sky.

Just in the last few hours, it went from being mostly sunny with slight haze in the mountains, to having a new plume from the Cameron Peak fire, or some new fire near that area. This new pyrocumulus is making the sun look red right now. I would suppose the snow will put that one out. California, however, should not have any precipitation to help get rid of this massive smoke plume near the national parks of the Sierras

Did Haishen achieve Category 5 status (137 kt or higher)? I'm so intrigued that the US Gulf faced a double storm threat, now, southern Japan to Korea is certainly facing a double large storm threat just 1 week later, or roughly one week.

I think the models are coming into agreement with general QPF/ snow amounts on Tuesday. I have never seen snow fall in September. In lower elevation areas of CO and the Midwest, I've only seen snow in October through May. I have had some snowflakes when I've been hiking in August, and maybe June. I can't remember if I've seen snowflakes at 13000-14000 ft in June or July. I once saw new snow on Mt. Bierstadt in September.

I guess we have a chance of snow next week, after the 90s to 100 degrees. That's nuts.

Areas that were +4 to +6 for August probably were in record heat territory.

Western states drought statistics... so sad.

Denver had the hottest August in history, tied with August 2011 (77.0 degrees). Phoenix, and Las Vegas had the hottest August in history. Yuma AZ had the 2nd hottest August in history. Tucson had the hottest August, which was also the hottest single month in history with an average of 92.0 degrees. Grand Junction CO had the hottest August in history.

24-hr radar- based rain totals for Ohio

This week's rains were below the values predicted by NWS-WPC about a a week ago. Nevertheless, I'm sure it provided some minor help to fighting wildfires. My place got 0.05" last night and a trace on August 26th. Yesterday's rain was the only measurable rain here since August 4th. Smoke and haze have been declining. GEFS ensemble means have cool or normal temperatures for 1 week or more. edit: my place is getting rain for the 2nd straight day. It may go through pretty quickly though. I had something of a shelf cloud type thing before this one. Maybe some 25-30mph wind gusts. Such excitement. Edit: Las Vegas has been over 100 degrees every day this month.

This image of TS Laura kind of looks like a skull, remarkably, a similar thing happened with Hurricane Matthew

I'm not sure this recon data is exactly the same data as the Vortex data message posted above-- this looks like it has some 64 kt + winds aloft. TS Marco looks like the Orion Nebula with this current burst of convection

Model-based view of smoke. The model breaks up the forecast into different layers and also vertically integrated smoke. This evening, I saw a 4-propeller plane going overhead. I think it was a water tanker for the fires, because it wasn't an old WWII plane. Today, the sky looked weird all day. I smelled smoke in the morning, but not in the afternoon or evening. It was hot. I went out at 5:45, and it must not have been too crazy hot at that time. Visibility the mountains was just 5-10 miles. Good news- the GFS and NWS-WPC show some rain for Colorado next week, both before and after the cold front that should be here on Thursday.

With the low-angle sunshine over the extensive smoke, it looks like a sandstorm has hit the country

Today, I think some smoke came in from California in the upper atmosphere, and my area may have had some (smellable?) smoke from the Cameron Peak fire. My visibility toward the mountains was possibly 10 miles in the evening today, and maybe a little better yesterday. Overall, definitely more noticeable smoke/haze towards the mountains on these days (Thursday/Friday) than the other days. Yesterday, I had brief thunderstorms to my north and south at different times-- saw about 3 lightning bolts.

I got 95.5 degrees when I put my thermometer outdoors today, but these mesonet stations got 98-99 in Loveland. Here's the temps from my area. Denver had a record high of 100 degrees. I expect the smoke and bad air quality to come back to me, with so many fires nearby. For right now, the NW flow aloft may take the smoke away from my area, like today.

Pine Gulch fire near Grand Junction is (I think) not too close to city developments, thankfully. It is up to 87000 acres, and it will soon be bigger than the max. extent of the High Park Fire, which was near Fort Collins 8 years ago. Yesterday and today, the air quality has improved a lot here, with only slight haze and no smell of smoke. The smoke clouds seem to be going towards Denver...

This seems to go along with all those extreme heat warnings I have been seeing on the NWS national map.

People got some pictures of lightning bolts over San Francisco this morning. I have never heard of a thunderstorm directly over San Francisco in summertime.

Sunset on Friday- the cloud is really the smoke plume from the Cameron Peak fire. My area has had considerable smoke since Friday. Yesterday morning and this morning, I have been able to smell it.

Satellite image from last night-- the clouds that you see in the north/central of Colorado are largely pyrocumulus

My area stayed at about 86 degrees today, a nice relief from the 90's. For some of this afternoon, there was a thick cloud of smoke above us from the Cameron Peak fire. We still had some fairly normal sunshine and blue skies, though. Overall, the Pine Gulch fire near Grand Junction has become a much bigger fire than any of the others in recent years, at over 72000 acres today.

Possible tornado near Rockford

Yesterday my area was up to about 95 or 96 degrees. KFNL airport had 100 degrees. At sunset, I saw a few nice red colors that reminded me of forest fire smoke. My best guess is that it was smoke from a fire near Grand Junction, which may be new.

Hailstorm near Greeley at about 5:00PM