I have seen the meme that heatmaps that look like severe burns, bruises, or warzones have replaced the weather forecasts from days past that would just show a sunny icon or a rainy icon with a temperature next to it.

I think it is intentional but someone could explain it away as “oh those are just the colors they chose, it’s just the way the radar looks, etc.”

NOAA published some charts of storm occurrences over the last 77 years in the Atlantic and east pacific basins: http://nhc.noaa.gov/climo

Now look at the image name for those charts toward the middle of the article:

ATLANTICCAMPFIRE.png PACIFICCAMPFIRE.png

I have always associated blues, light blues, indigos, greens with storms and hurricanes. The weather organizations have too. Why do these charts look like explosions?

I assert that noaa is disappointed that their general predictions of more storms, worse storms, earlier in the season, due to climate change were incorrect. They have specifically curated some data and presented it in a way that resembles a wild blaze to stoke anxiety and assure the public that destruction is just around the bend.

The naming of the image files is evidence that noaa intentionally uses reds and yellows in their charting because it resembles flames. There is no such thing as a “campfire chart”. It is generally known as a stacked area chart. “Campfire” could only describe the color scheme