Wednesday September 06, 2006

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1640z September 06, 2006

United States:
Wildfires across the entire northwest portion of the United States have
massed one giant area of smoke that stretches across many areas of the US
and Canada. The majority of this smoke is being produced by fires located
in Okanogan National Forest of northern Washington, Umatilla National
Forest of southeast Washington, many fires spreading through central
and northern Idaho, and a large wildfire located in southern Montana.

The massive area of smoke is moving to the north,to the northeast, to the
east, and to to the southeast from the many fires. The densest portion of
smoke can be seen covering Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, western Dakota's,
Nebraska and Kansas. There is even dense smoke that traveled through
Canada and is moving south back into the US and covering Minnesota,
Iowa, and northern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

Lighter to moderately dense smoke is affecting Missouri, Arkansas,
Oklahoma, Texas and some of the lighter smoke is even reaching the
southeastern states.

Canada:
Mainly the smoke from the fires in Okanogan National Forest is traveling
north to northeast into British Columbia, where it then begins to move
directly east across almost all of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba
and western Ontario, before it takes a turn to the south back into the
United States.

California:
The wildfires located within the national forest's of northwest California
continue to produce dense to very dense smoke that is fanning out to the
west out over the Pacific Ocean. Some of this smoke also is traveling
up the coast into western Oregon.

Banks

 


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.