Climate Change? Nahhh ...

Yeah, the eastern extension of that fire — Forest Service calls it the Thompson Zone — is really active right now, according to data from the VIIRS array on NOAA-20 and the Suomi bird.

Regional scan, VIIRS:


Red asterisks are hotspots. Y’all have already figured out where the Thompson Zone is.

Now I’m going to zoom in on the Thompson Zone and turn on the GOES-17 data that is a bit iffier, with less spatial accuracy. Remember that one pixel of error can mean a hotspot is a mile away from where it’s shown. Red is less than 10 minutes old, orange is 10-60 minutes old, yellow is over an hour old. This could be and probably is just the way the wind is pushing smoke and embers right now rather than actual fires on the ground, but even that is a bad sign, because the embers spark the fire.


Steady winds of over 20 mph are expected for most of the day, with the weather not changing over to rain and then snow until 10 p.m. MT.

Hold tight.

 

Scanner call, Estes Park: Turn off the gas to the YMCA (I believe it’s SW of town) and all houses west of the YMCA.

 

I can't imagine how demoralizing it is to live there, have had to evacuate, and then see the fire coming closer and closer to your home watching these.

 

Ugh, the YMCA camp is awesome. Smoke is bad in northern Colorado again. Fires are very active. Going to be a tough day until the snow moves in.

 

It’s coming.



And they may have stopped the eastern spread where they hoped to, at Bear Lake Road inside the park.

 

You evacuate your home, only to face a 17-inch snowfall on your return. So 2020.

 

I'll more than love to have to shovel 17 inches of snow if I still have a home. Praying for Colorado.

 

This is the roof camera atop the Baldpate Inn outside of Estes Park and next to the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park … and at the time I’m writing this, I see flurries.