Wednesday, May 24, 2006

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1545Z May 24, 2006.

Central US:
Morning GOES-West Visible imagery with low sun angle shows a very
large mass of haze covering a good portion of the middle of the country
stretching from the Gulf Coast region of Texas/Louisiana/Mississippi
northward to at least as far as Iowa/Illinois. Cloudiness across
the northern portion of this area is making detection of more haze
difficult. A number of sources are likely contributing to this huge
area of haze which we have been analyzing at least partly as smoke for
the past couple of days, even though a good portion of it is likely not
all smoke. Some of it is likely general atmospheric pollutants which
have been trapped in this region by weather systems. A small portion
of it also could be leftover smoke from both agricultural fires in the
Dakotas/Minnesota/southern Canada as well as the large fire last week
in Quebec Province to the southeast of Hudson Bay. There is also a good
probability of a bit of blowing dust and definitely smoke from a big
fire in western Armstrong County of the northern Texas Panhandle being
transported northeastward especially across Oklahoma and Kansas toward
Missouri and southern Iowa.

JS





 


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.