Saturday, May 6, 2006

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0100Z MAY 7, 2006.

Western Gulf of Mexico/Texas:
A large number of fires continues to burn across Mexico (especially the
Yucatan Peninsula) and Central America and produce a very large mass
of smoke which covers most of the western half of the Gulf of Mexico.
The eastern edge of the smoke is along a line from the eastern tip of the
Yucatan peninsula (where the smoke is very dense due to the large number
of very intense fires) northwestward to about Port Arthur, Texas. All
of south Texas south of about San Antonio and west to around Del Rio is
covered in the smoke which is thin to moderately dense. The smoke area
continues to slowly drift north.

Cuba/Florida/Bahamas:
Numerous large fires over western Cuba were responsible for an area of
smoke that is moving north from the western third of the island. The
smoke is moderately dense to dense within 100 km of Cuba and becomes
thinner as is reaches the Florida Keys and southwest Florida as far
north as Fort Myers.

Several fires over central and south Florida were producing moderately
dense to locally dense smoke plumes that were all moving east and off the
coast into the Atlantic. The fires were located in northern Highlands,
southeast Polk and northern Osceola counties. Another  fire over northwest
Broward had a smoke plume extending to the east northeast into southern
Palm beach county.

A large fire on northern Andros Island in the Bahamas has been burning
for a few days and has a lengthy smoke plume associated with it that
extends to the northeast into the open Atlantic.

Pennsylvania:
A narrow plume of moderately dense smoke from a fire in southern Clinton
county, in or near the Sproul State Forest, extended about 50 km to
the southeast.

Northern Plains:
A large number of fires were seen over northwest Minnesota, North Dakota
and into south central Canada. A few small smoke plumes were seen over
northwest Minnesota and along the North and South Dakota border.

Arizona:
A fire over northwest Coconino county, very close to the Grand Canyon,
was producing a moderately dense to locally dense smoke plume that was
spreading east about 200 km and had reached northern Apache county.

Southern California:

A pair of fires were seen over southwest San Bernardino county. The
larger smoke producing fire was in the vicinity of Mount Baldy and the
moderately dense smoke was swirling around within about 50 km of the
fire. Another fire was in or near the San Gorgonio wilderness and had
a narrow, thin smoke plume that extended less than 50 km to the northeast.

Mexico:
A large fire near or in the Sierra Del Carmen range in northern Mexico
was emitting a moderately dense smoke plume that was drifting to the
northeast. At sunset the plume had not reached the Rio Grande.

A large number of fires were over northwest Durango and southern Chihuahua
states. Clouds have moved over the region by afternoon and have precluded
the detection of smoke. However, based on the past several days, it is
likely that smoke covers much of the region.

Ruminski

 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.