DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z May 14, 2007
Mexico/Central America/Gulf of Mexico: The smoke from the extremely large number of seasonal fires burning across southern and eastern Mexico and Central America continues to be suppressed to the south and east. The thickest concentrations of smoke stretch from the southern portion of the Yucatan Peninsula and Guatemala eastward over Belize and Honduras. Southern and Southeastern US/Gulf of Mexico/Bahamas: Smoke continues to pour out of the extremely large intense fires burning across far southern Georgia and extreme northern Florida. Mainly thin smoke with possible embedded patches of moderately dense smoke covered much of the central and northern Gulf of Mexico. Thin smoke likely mixed with other pollutants also appeared to be inland over Louisiana, the eastern half of Texas, a portion of the Central and Southern Plains and at least over the southern half of the Gulf Coast states from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle. Over southern Georgia, much of Florida, and areas east of Florida including the northern Bahamas, the smoke became at least moderately dense with patches of dense smoke embedded within this region. The thickest smoke was spread across the southern portions of Georgia to the west of the fires and into northern Florida including Tallahassee. More fires over southern Florida in Collier County were producing at least moderately dense to perhaps locally dense smoke plumes which moved to the east and to the south adding to the smoke already in the region. Southern Canada/Upper Midwest/Great Lakes Region/Northeast/Middle Atlantic: The earlier possible very thin smoke which was moving from Canada into the Northeastern US appeared along and off the Northeast and Middle Atlantic coastal regions late in the early evening just prior to sunset as it continued to move to the southeast. Closer to the fires in northeastern Minnesota (near the US-Canadian border in the Boundary Waters region of Cook County) and also in southwestern Ontario Province in Canada, southerly winds were pushing the dense smoke plumes in a northerly direction during the day. Clouds moved over the fires during the afternoon, limiting satellite detection of the smoke plumes. Elsewhere, in the early afternoon, new fires in Canada had popped up around 25 miles to the northwest of Lake Superior and also around 50 miles to the northeast of Sault Ste. Marie Michigan. The fire northeast of Sault Ste. Marie was emitting a very dense large mass of smoke which was moving mainly in an easterly direction. California: Satellite imagery detected a fire this afternoon in south central Los Angeles County resulting in a moderately dense smoke plume which moved to the northeast. Oregon: A moderately dense to locally dense smoke plume was observed moving to the southeast from a fire in the Malheur National Forest in southeastern Grant County in east central Oregon. Western US: GOES-East visible imagery along with the low sun angle just prior to sunset showed a large region of haze over much of California extending to the north and east over Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and western Montana. The very large area of haze was at an unknown level in the atmosphere and its composition was also unknown. JS