Australia's bushfires are creating freak thunderstorms

VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA — CBS News reports that bushfires in Australia are burning so fiercely that they are creating pyrocumulonimbus clouds which are then creating thunderstorms.

The Bureau of Meteorology in Victoria tweeted that the bushfires in East Grippland had triggered one such storm in a warning issued on Thursday last week.

CBS News meteorologists say that bushfires heat the air so intensely that they could send ash upwards at a speed of 100 miles an hour or more.

The updrafts can then cause ash and smoke to rise miles up into the atmosphere where cooler temperature causes water to condense into clouds.

According to CBS News, freak storms like this could increase as our planet continues to heat up.

According to CBS News, the more violent the bushfire, the faster the updraft and the more likely the clouds will form thunderstorms.

Unlike normal storms, bushfire-caused storms do not result in much rain since the falling raindrops are evaporated by the heat from the fires raging below.

CBS News warns that lightning strikes from these storms are far more likely to cause further bushfires due to the lack of rain.