AURSEEAursee · method
Weather at a fire
Where the wind, humidity and temperature on a fire page come from, and at what time and resolution.
The figures
Fire pages give wind speed and direction at 10 m, relative humidity and temperature at 2 m, from an Open-Meteo weather model service. Values are for a 0.5 degree cell, about 55 km, at the hour the fire was first detected, with the forecast 6 and 12 hours ahead.
Weather is attached each hour to the two thousand most powerful fires and to the fires picked for their own page.
Resolution
A 0.5 degree cell is regional weather. Wind in a valley, or wind made by the fire itself, can differ a great deal from it.
More on the method
- What a satellite fire detection isHow VIIRS finds active fires from orbit, what a 375 m detection means, and when a fire is not seen.
- Fires in the dark: how satellites find them at nightWhy a fire is easier to see from orbit at night, how VIIRS picks a flame of a few dozen square metres out of a 375 m pixel, and what “burning in darkness” means on the map.
- Fire radiative power (MW)What fire radiative power measures, how Aursee adds it up, and how to compare two fires.
- How detections become firesThe rule Aursee uses to turn individual satellite pixels into fires you can open, name and follow.
- The burn archive, 2012 to todayHow Aursee remembers where fire has been detected since 2012, and what the history figures on each page mean.
- Lightning near a fireHow Aursee checks for lightning before a fire was first seen, and where that check is possible.
- Land cover and roads under a fireWhat kind of ground a fire is burning on, and how many roads are around it: sources and resolution.
- Data sources and licencesEvery dataset Aursee uses, who publishes it, and the licence it is used under.