The Drought-Ravaged West Sprouts a Massive Pyrocumulus

With their tornadoes, hurricanes, and hailstorms, America's East and Midwest hog a lot of the eye-popping weather phenomena. But the West just proved it can generate spectacular airborne sights, too, with a flame-fed pyrocumulus cloud billowing over the land like a Cold War nuclear test.

The drought that's squeezing the life out of the West—seriously, people have taken to painting their lawns green rather than waste water—has created the perfect conditions for wildfires. And with the sparking help of lightning, blazes are popping up all over the place. The outbreaks are so ferocious that California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency this weekend, as towns evacuated, several homes got incinerated, and more than 100,000 acres of vegetation were reduced to embers in the northern part of the state.