Some of the inversion layers in California lately have been truly impressive as well in the past week. Take a look at some skew-T log-p diagrams over the past week:<p>Norcal (Oakland): <a href="https://climate.cod.edu/products/analysis/raob/index.php?type=conus-current-current-skewt-KOAK-0" rel="nofollow">https://climate.cod.edu/products/analysis/raob/index.php?typ...</a>
Socal (Vandenburg): <a href="https://climate.cod.edu/products/analysis/raob/index.php?type=conus-current-current-skewt-KVBG-0" rel="nofollow">https://climate.cod.edu/products/analysis/raob/index.php?typ...</a><p>If you've never seen one of these before, the blue lines of temperature (isotherms) are skewed to the right, so that everything fits on the graph, and the pressure is logarithmic so it corresponds to height. The light green lines are adiabats -- air rising or falling will follow along these lines until water condenses. The big red line is temperature, and the big green one is dewpoint temperature -- where the lines touch there's a cloud.<p>So what we have here are large inversion layers, where temperature increases with height. Normally, the red line goes mostly straight up the graphy, as lowering pressure should lower temperature of air. And indeed, this creates a cap, where air above and below the edge of the inversion gets trapped.<p>These huge inversions are why the smoke is largely staying above the ground. It rises hot from the fire, but any sinking would be countered by the buoyance of the air wanting to keep it up. Mixing at the boundary layer is slow with this strong of an inversion.<p>But the inversion is also low, which means that the temperature differences with altitude can be extreme. I'm on the coast in Ventura, but if you went up the hills in the same city, it would be 30°F/17°C warmer at the same time. And in LA, the 100-120°F highs a couple days ago. We're having Santa Ana winds that are literally blowing over the top of calm air below, because the pressure gradient is too weak to overcome the strong inversion. This is really crazy weather.<p>Dramatic photos of SF, for anyone who's missing out on the bright orange sky. <a href="https://abc7news.com/weather/photos-orange-hazy-skies-seen-across-bay-area/6415624/" rel="nofollow">https://abc7news.com/weather/photos-orange-hazy-skies-seen-a...</a>
A different view of the same data, linked in another HN thread a few months ago<p>long url to get you in the right area:
<a href="https://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=goes-17&z=3&im=12&ts=1&st=0&et=0&speed=130&motion=loop&map=1&lat=0&opacity%5B0%5D=1&hidden%5B0%5D=0&pause=0&slider=-1&hide_controls=0&mouse_draw=0&follow_feature=0&follow_hide=0&s=rammb-slider&sec=full_disk&p%5B0%5D=geocolor&x=14150&y=3034" rel="nofollow">https://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=goes-17&z=3&im=...</a>
Note that the inland clouds in the geocolor view are white compared the coastal smoke.<p>It seems to me that you should be able to see the fires directly on one of the IR bands but I haven't found it.