First Warning for Rare Fire-nado Issued in 2020
The Claim
The National Weather Service recently issued a first-ever fire tornado warning in California.
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Emerging story
Saturday, August 15, 2020 witnessed an abnormal weather event in northern California: a fire tornado. Social media users alit with wonder and fear over the devastating possibility of such weather existing. The National Weather Service issued bulletins for the event, and people claimed that the “Fire Tornado Warning,” is the first of its kind. One account mistakenly posted that this had occurred this year.
Misbar’s Analysis
The National Weather Service did issue a warning for a fire tornado this year, but it was not the first. Reports of the first warning in 2020 originate from Dan Satterfield, a meteorologist and professional blogger for the American Geophysical Union, a non-profit organization of scientists devoted to disseminating the latest scientific information in areas including atmospheric science and natural hazards. Satterfield claims the Weather Service issued the first-ever fire tornado warning in 2020, but added that this was not the first observed occurrence of the phenomenon. In 2018, a fire tornado near Redding, California was one of the largest ever recorded.
The 2020 occurrence appears to be the only issued alert for a fire tornado, or “pyrocumulonimbus.” Aside from this report, the only other mention was from May 2018, in Texas, and a warning for a fire tornado, by either name, was not issued.
Rather than the tornado being wreathed in fire, however, as one may infer, the tornado was born of fire. As The Weather Channel explains, wildfires raging across California last August created massive wind currents, as wildfires can create their own weather in some cases. The currents combine as they would before or during a thunderstorm to create a tornado.
