DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z MARCH 31, 2006
Alabama/Georgia/South Carolina/North Carolina/Tennessee/Kentucky: Quite a few smoke producing fires were noted this afternoon across the hilly terrain of the area extending from northeastern Alabama/northwestern Georgia across eastern Tennessee/western North Carolina to eastern Kentucky. Several of the smoke plumes across this region had combined to form a few large patches of smoke by early in the evening. The thickest smoke was being emitted by a fire in southern Laurel County of southeastern Kentucky. This locally very dense smoke plume was spreading northeastward and covered much of this county as well as several counties northeast of there. Fires over a few counties of northwestern Georgia including Chattooga, Floyd, and Bartow as well as Polk County of southeastern Tennessee had combined to form a rather large batch of smoke of varying density which was moving generally northward covering northwestern Georgia and also a portion of southeastern Tennessee. Another sizable patch of smoke were noted from fires over Union and Laurens Counties of north central South Carolina. This smoke had moved northward into southern North Carolina, just to the west of the Charlotte metro area. Mainly thin smoke was detected moving to the northeast from a fire near the Chatham-Wake County border of north central North Carolina. The smoke had moved into the Raleigh-Durham vicinity by early evening. Fires in Jasper and Putnam Counties of central Georgia as well as Chattahoochee County of west central Georgia were also responsible for large patches of thin to moderately dense smoke which spread northward. Finally, smoke was observed moving both westward and eastward from a fire in Berkeley County of eastern South Carolina. The eastern portion of this smoke plume extended more than 100 miles offshore. Florida/Alabama/Mississippi/Louisiana: Moderately dense smoke was moving to the north and into southern Alabama from a fire located in Santa Rosa County of the western portion of the Florida panhandle. A significant fire in Hancock County of far southern Mississippi resulted in a locally dense smoke plume which moved off to the north-northwest. The smoke plume crossed into northeast Louisiana then back into south central Mississippi. Texas/Oklahoma/Kansas: Strong southwesterly and westerly winds around a low pressure system over the northern Plains fanned a few fires over northwestern Texas, western Oklahoma and central Kansas, and also caused blowing dust. A fire very close to Amarillo was producing an area of thin to moderately dense smoke which moved eastward during the afternoon. Another batch of thin to moderately dense smoke was observed moving generally eastward from a fire near the Ellis-Woodward County border of western Oklahoma. A large and persistent fire over northeastern Reno County of south central Kansas produced a locally dense smoke plume which was blown off to the east-northeast. Visible imagery through early evening also showed a swath of what is likely a combination of smoke and blowing dust across central and eastern Oklahoma as well as the eastern third of Kansas. Earlier in the afternoon visible imagery had shown blowing dust originating from the large areas of Gray, Roberts, and Hutchinson Counties of the northern Texas panhandle which were burned by fires earlier in the Winter. These source regions appear to be the primary contributor to the smoke/dust cloud across OK/KS. JS