Using stationary rakes of hot-wire anemometer probes, a series of temperature measurements have been conducted within rising buoyant thermals created by detonation of large-diameter gas-filled balloons. These atmospheric detonation simulation tests were performed at the SANDIA Laboratories Aerial Cable Test Facility, Kirtland AFB, during the late fall of 1973. All measurements were performed after pressure equilibrium (t > 1 s) but prior to completion of the toroid formation process and within the time required (t > 4 s) for the fireball to rise one diameter.

Based on an extensive processing of measured data for two detonation events, unique results describing the mean flow field and turbulent structure statistics for the early-time large-scale buoyant thermal have been determined. Final results include: mean-velocity and temperature data; temperature and temperature gradient intensities; space, auto- and ‘eddy-lifetime’ correlation scales; power-spectral densities; probability density distributions and approximate microscale data.

The present temperature data illustrate that the early-time rising fireball is characterized by a highly intermittent irregular top or cap, a constant (high-) temperature core and a thermal wake exhibiting a linear decay in mean temperature. Mean convection velocities for the fireball wake were measured to be approximately twice as large as fireball cap velocities (13.1 m/s). Maximum fireball temperatures (1100 °C) were in good agreement with peak brightness-temperature data determined from an independent IR measurements experiment. Core leading-edge mean-temperature gradients compare favourably with predictions (10 °C/cm) whereas trailing-edge gradients (0.4 °C/cm) are smaller than predicted results (3 °C/cm).

Normalized temperature intensities at the fireball top and within the thermal wake were substantial (≈ 0.6) in contrast with quiescent fireball core levels (0.1). Moving-frame autocorrelation times (‘eddy lifetimes’, 0.17 + 0.04 s) were approximately four times larger than measured autocorrelation times. This result illustrates that the early-time fireball eddy structure is highly persistent, a finding which tends to substantiate those radar models for large-scale fireballs which postulate relatively slow ‘smearing’ of early-time electron density gradients. Wake integral scales, determined from vertical space correlation data, were approximately 5% of the fireball mean radius. Probability density distributions for the fireball thermal wake were ‘spiky’ in nature, with some evidence of bimodal behaviour, and slightly skewed to the negative side of their normalized values. Normalized spectra data, in general, follow a − &5/3; falloff behaviour for several decades in spectral power. The noted large ‘spread’ in the inertial subrange is consistent with measured turbulence Reynolds numbers (2000) and with the large-scale fully developed turbulent structure for the GEST fireballs (ReD = 3 × 107). Wake microscale data, estimated from temperature and temperature-gradient intensity data and the isotropic turbulence assumption, varied from 2 to 4 ern and were in favourable agreement with predicted microscale magnitudes.