Australia had more supersized bushfires creating their own storms last summer than in previous 30 years : The Guardian

A pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCB) cloud generated by the Orroral Valley bushfire south of Canberra.
 During the 2019-20 summer there was a record number of these events. Photograph: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

There was a near doubling of the record of pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCB) storms, royal commission hears

Tue 16 Jun 2020

Australia experienced more supersized weather-generating fires in the 2019-20 bushfire season than in the previous 30 years, the royal commission into national natural disaster arrangements has heard.

Huge thunderstorm-type clouds called pyrocumulonimbus form over fires in particularly hot, dry and dangerous conditions and are capable of generating their own winds and lightning.

They were once considered “bushfire oddities” but last summer there was a “near doubling of the record of these events, in one event,” Prof David Bowman told the royal commission on Tuesday.

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