Why are the rocks so hot? The image below was taken at 2:01 PM (PST) several days ago. This phenomenon occurs almost daily now.
Even today (July 24), it is has started (11:36 AM PST):
Copy this URL and watch for yourself. It will capture the last 4:10-hrs of Infrared (Ch 07) imagery.
https://weather.ndc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/get-abi?satellite=GOESWestconusband07&lat=34&lon=-109.8&zoom=1&width=650&height=450&quality=100&palette=ir4.pal&type=Animation&numframes=50
Update: 2:11 PM PST
Understand that this is not a gradual heating: the surfaces go from the background temperature to black in a single image increment (5-min). The same happens when the black goes away; it doesn’t cool gradually, the black just switches off.
Baking the rocks would add more heat to the lower atmosphere, wouldn’t it?
Just paste the URL above and watch.


