Australian Busfires

[Michael Thompson]

I had to visit Melbourne over the weekend and on the way back saw the fires from the plane, Plane was a 21,000ft at time.
The fires at present are less threatening due to cooler temperatures and lighter winds over the weekend, however this is only the beginning of summer and there will be more hot and windy days to come before this emergency is over.
The first photo was taken looking E/SE ,about 150km north of Melbourne. There are several fire fronts visible, the most distant had a small bubble of pyro-cumulus. The 5th which was just out of frame (second picture) was one that flew almost directly over. The is fire is near Mt Buffalo ( the rocky bits ), a ski resort - that this past winter had almost no snow the entire season. You can also see that this fire is near farmland, although the worst winds N/NW should they develop later this week would blow it back.
These fires were not the largest in the complex, those were in the smoke soup about 100-150km further SE.

Images click to larger pictures.

 

[Gerrit Gulden]

There must be a great amount of fuel (brush) out where those pyro-cumulus clouds were taken. I dont recall ever seeing a pyro-cumulus that big before. Having Grown up in Southern California we would get many brush fires from Lightning and on many occasions arson and with the fuel of the Santa Ana winds the fires easily grew very big. However I dont recall ever seeing pyro-cumulus that big.

Good Luck to you Micheal and I hope your neighborhood is safe throughout your Climates fire season.

Keep us updated...

Sincerely: Gerrit

 

[Michael Thompson]

Compared to the pyrocumulus last week these were not even pimples. The forecast until Christmas is looking like staying away from a major invasion of hot dry air from the interior, in fact models are toying with a significant vold front for Christmas Day, perhaps even a dusting of snow on Tasmania's peaks.

 

[Michael Thompson]

White Christmas eases fire threat

In a bizarre twist the fire menace in Victoria has been eased by a very cold Christmas Day with conditions that saw rain, hail, thunder and even snow in areas over 1500m. In some areas the falls were the deepest all year!

Snow on Christmas day in Australia's highlands is obviously rare, but not without precedence.

Melbourne, Australia's second largest city saw temperatures struggle to reach 14.5C (58F).

Normal conditions and even summery thunder should return by the New Years weekend.