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COMET_CASE_043: COMET Case Study 043: Colorado Fire/Kansas Severe Weather

Summary

The 137,760-acre Hayman Fire generated massive amounts of heat, dust and moisture into the sky southwest of Denver. The towering smoke plume from this fire spawned nighttime thunderstorms across the Great Plains. On the night of Monday, June 10th, southwesterly winds drove the smoke and the clouds into northeastern Colorado, where showers and golf ball-sized hail were reported in Washington County near Akron. The next night, Tuesday, June 11th, west winds pushed the clouds east into Kansas, where violent weather erupted and two small tornadoes were triggered in south- central Kansas.

Objectives:

This case allows an in-depth study of dynamics of fire weather, such as the impact of fire heat, dust and moisture on the precipitation, and the enhancement of hail and tornado formation.

Data access

Datasets from this project

Additional information

GCMD Name A - C > COMET > Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education, and Training > 5c70d6af-b73d-418e-a793-47481302eeb5
Related links

Temporal coverage

Begin Date 2002-06-10 00:00:00
End Date 2002-06-14 23:59:59

Spatial coverage


Map data from IBCSO, IBCAO, and Global Topography.

Maximum (North) Latitude: 43.00, Minimum (South) Latitude: 34.60
Minimum (West) Longitude: -109.00, Maximum (East) Longitude: -91.00

Related projects

Parent project COMET: COMET Case Studies