DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0015Z May 12, 2007
Dust/Sand: Nevada: Very strong southerly winds are producing thin to moderately dense sand plumes from some of the white sand/salt flats across central NV. Alkali Flat in eastern Eureka county has a thin plume that extends due north along the Eureka/Elko county line into central Elko county just east of the Independence Mtn. range. The Dry Lakes of E Churchill county (NE of Cold Spings) and SW Lander county have plumes that extend north along the county line into SE Pershing county along the New Pass Range of Mtns. Smoke: GA/FL/GoM/Atlantic The numerous fire complexes of the Okefenokee Swamp region that are burning across W Charlton, SE Clinch and most of Ware county south of Waycross as well as, NE Hamilton and NW Baker counties in FL are producing convectively dense smoke with some pyrocumulonimbus clouds developing due to the intense heat over the said counties. The extremely dense smoke is drifting SSW across NW peninsular FL into the Gulf of Mexico (85km NW of Tampa or 315km SSE of the fires). Here the smoke from today begins to mix with remnant smoke from prior days. This smoke ranges in density from thin to very dense and surrounds the remnant tropical cyclone Andrea off Cape Canaveral. Thin smoke from many days ago has wrapped around the circulation of Andrea as of yesterday and now covers much of the western panhandle of FL, SE AL (S of I-85, E of I-65), and far SW GA and continues to move SW. This area then connects to a moderately dense arm of smoke (that the new smoke from today is connecting to) extending from Franklin county south into the GoM near 28N84.6W...This is most likely from yesterday's burning and is beginning to drift back eastward along the coastline of FL due to westerly low level winds. The arm of moderate smoke then extends from 28N84.6W Sely where it merges to the main area of very dense smoke near Ft. Myers...this arm is moving SSE and is about 124km which covers the entire western counties south of Tampa along the FL peninsula. The largest and most significant smoke (in terms of density) affects all of S FL south of Lake Okeechobee and is more or less in a E-W line from 79W to 88W between 24.5N and 26.5N...and is generally moving eastward slowly. The last area is an area of moderate to dense smoke that is moving NE along the SE quadrant of Andrea from Miami, FL across the northern tip of Andros island and covering all of Grand Bahama and Abaco extending out to 29N75W with an average width of 200km. South Carolina: A fire in the Francis Marion Nat'l Forest just NW of Awendaw is currently producing a line of thin low level smoke that is moving NW with the sea breeze to around Lake Marion and is about 10km wide. An puff of moderate to dense smoke from earlier this afternoon before the sea breeze moved through continues to move SW along the coastline and now extends between Edisto Island and Isle of Palms just east of Charleston and is about 22km wide. Great Lakes: Smoke from yesterday's burning of the Ham Fire along the Boundary Waters of MN and ONT and a large fire to the west of Lake Nipigon is caught up in a midlevel trof that is draping across the Great Lakes into northern New England. The smoke is moderately dense across S NY into S VT and is about 150km wide. A thin smoke plume extends back from S NY across Buffalo, NY to Flint, MI due west to Eau Claire, WI where it becomes moderately dense to the end of the line near Albert Lea, MN with an average width of 100km. California: A fire on the NE side of Santa Catalina island is producing dense smoke that is drifting across the San Pedro Channel reaching the Long Beach area south to around Huntington Beach... stronger westerly winds from the Pacific appear to recently shift the plume from moving NE from the island toward more due east...though the smoke that is near Long Beach appears to be caught up in the cove and is beginning to take a comma appearance. Gallina