A massive tire fire at a recycling plant on Thursday, September 20th, produced a 10 to 12 mile-long plume of thick, black smoke that appeared to enhance a thundercloud with rain. The plume of smoke, towering thousands of feet into the air, rolled over portions of Chandler and Gilbert before streaking across the central Valley.

How much this fire enhanced the thunderstorm that moved through the area is yet to be determined but NewsHawk 5 pilot/reporter Scott Clifton reported massive smoke rising into the building cumulus clouds which quickly erupted with rain and thunderstorms.

These where not pyro cumulonimbus clouds but never the less it was a interesting local meteorological event to see unfold on radar and from Newshawk 5

For information on Pyro Cumulonimbus Clouds see these papers below:

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Cambridge/techprogram/paper_92820.htm

http://www.atmos-chem-phys.org/7/645/2007/acp-7-645-2007.pdf

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:ePSiaxzDt5oJ:www.atmos-chem-phys.org/7/645/2007/acp-7-645-2007.pdf+micro+pyro+cumulonimbus&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

Keep looking up,

SPG

Here is the information noted on the 10 pm news. According to meteorologists at the NWS in Phoenix,

"A COMMONLY ASKED QUESTION IS WHETHER OR NOT RAINFALL DURING THE MONSOON IS CHANGING /OR BECOMING LESS/. BASED ON THE LONG TERM TREND FOR PHOENIX THE ANSWER IS NO. THE DATA SHOW THAT THERE IS GREAT VARIABILITY FROM ONE YEAR TO THE NEXT...AND EVEN ONE DECADE TO THE NEXT. THERE IS ALSO A LONG TERM OSCILLATION WHICH APPEARS IN THE DATA SET...WITH PEAKS IN RAINFALL AMOUNTS /WET/ DURING THE 1910S...1950S AND 1980S...AND TROUGHS /DRY/ DURING THE 1930S...1970S AND THE 2000S."