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