DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1615Z July 17, 2006.
Minnesota/Wisconsin/Ontario: The wildfires throughout Lake and Cook counties are continuing to produce a large area of dense smoke moving south across Lake Superior and into north and central Wisconsin. Additional fires are burning across the border in Ontario just north of St Louis and Lake counties in Minnesota. They are emitting thin plumes of moderately dense smoke. The smoke is just one of the contributors to the overall smoke coverage in the central US. Great Basin/Rockies/Plains/Mississippi Valley/Upper Great Lakes/Alberta: An enormous amount of smoke stretches across the U.S. ranging from Utah into eastern/central Montana, most of Wyoming, Colorado, throughout the northern Plains from North Dakota to northeast Texas and into the Mississippi Valley and north and eastward into the Ohio Valley and the Upper Great Lakes. The fires of most concern are burning in Petroleum, Garfield and Phillips counties in central Montana. They are emitting long narrow plumes of thick smoke moving northwest across the state and into southeast Alberta. The overall smoke coverage is moving towards the southeast. California/Nevada/Utah: A wildfire in Stanislaus county in central California (just southeast of the south Bay area) is producing a moderately dense plume of smoke moving northwest and southeast from the source. In Plumas county of northern California a fire is emitting a moderately dense plume of smoke that is moving to the west. A fire in southeast Nye county in Nevada continues to produce dense plumes of smoke that is moving to the northeast and affecting eastern Nevada and small parts of western Utah. Kibler