Lorri Provow had just loaded her pets into the car on Saturday and was leaving her Masonville area home when she saw a frightening sight, a swirling column of smoke — a “smokenado.”
Provow used her mobile phone camera to take photos of the unusual weather and fire event.
“The high winds were moving the fire very fast over the top of the ridge and down towards the Masonville post office,” Provow recalled. “We were frightened by the thought of a tornado and what role it might play in spreading the fire.”
Aviva Braun, an incident meteorologist with the Cameron Peak fire, described a smokenado as kin to a dust devil.
“Think of how a dust devil is created, except elongated,” Braun said.
Strong, erratic winds, at different speeds and different air levels, combined with the heat of the fire, smoke, and even likely dust, and debris, combined to create the smokenado.
“This was created by the instability of the environment it was in,” Braun said. “This started over a surface that had been heated and the heated air wanted to rise. There’s also a lot of winds.
“Fires can create their own weather. It’s warmer than the ambient temperature and it wants to move to an area of equilibrium,” forcing an upward, vertical rotation.
The smokenado was likely short lived, Braun said. And while they are somewhat rare, it’s a rare event to capture on film or video.
“Generally, people are not near large wildfires,” Braun said. “At last we try not to be.”
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October 20, 2020 at 10:44AM
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