DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z September 22, 2006
Southern California: The enormous Ventura County fires continue to burn today with tremendous amounts of smoke being produced. Earlier this afternoon the densest of the smoke was being blown to the south and southeast along the coast and across the Los Angeles metro area. Shifting winds early this evening were beginning to push the very dense smoke just slightly farther inland over interior southern California. However, even though the densest smoke was farther inland, moderately dense to possibly locally dense smoke was still affecting the large population centers of Los Angeles and San Diego. Somewhat thinner smoke from this fire has been transported a long distance southeastward across northern and central Baja as well as northwestern Mexico and also into western and southwestern Arizona. Northern California: Moderately dense to locally dense smoke from the Trinity County fires and to a lesser extent from the smaller fire in southwestern Siskiyou County was observed moving in a southward direction late this afternoon and early this evening. The significant fire in Sierra County continues to burn and is responsible for a dense smoke plume which has spread to the southeast and across the Lake Tahoe region. Southeastern Oregon/Northern Nevada: Strong northwesterly winds blowing across a dry lake bed in the desert region southeastern Oregon were producing a relatively narrow swath of blowing dust which traveled from near the Malheur-Harney County border in southeastern Oregon to Elko County in northeastern Nevada. Western Texas/Oklahoma/Southeastern Kansas: Blowing dust was observed across a large area extending from close to the Texas-New Mexico border across western Texas (including Lubbock) to north central Texas (around Wichita Falls) then northeastward across the Oklahoma City metro area to southeastern Kansas. Southeastern and Middle Atlantic: Numerous fires and a few smoke plumes were detected with fires scattered across the Southeastern and Middle Atlantic regions from Louisiana/Arkansas to Georgia to Virginia. Most of these smoke plumes were of the thin to locally moderately dense variety and lasted for several hours during the afternoon. JS