DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z June 24, 2007
Alaska/Yukon/Northwest Territories/northern Alberta/northern Saskatchewan: Some of the extremely large fires which had been burning just north of Homer in or near the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge were still visible at times through the clouds but smoke detection was not possible due to the widespread cloudiness. There were still active fires burning in far eastern Alaska and western Yukon Province of Canada which were producing a large area of thin smoke with embedded patches of moderately dense and dense smoke. The smoke from these fires was moving more in a northeasterly direction late in the day. The biggest smoke producing fire appeared to be in the Northwest Territories. Dense smoke from this fire seemed to travel in an anticyclonic circular direction during the day as a nearby high pressure system steered the smoke. Another big smoke producing fire in northern Alberta Province was emitting moderately dense to dense smoke which fanned out to the east and west as it moved to the north and northwest during the day. Western US: Fires in southern Lassen and southern Plumas Counties of northeastern California in or close to the Lassen and Plumas National Forests, respectively were producing moderately dense to locally dense smoke plumes which spread quickly to the northeast. Gusty westerly winds coming down the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains spread across several dry lake beds in northwestern and west central Nevada resulting in some rather significant swaths of blowing dust, some of which extended more than 150 miles to the east-northeast of their source. Also, a very large region of haze was noted in visible imagery just prior to sunset which extended from off the central California coast across the San Francisco Bay region then northeastward across northern Nevada, western(including Boise) and northwestern Idaho, western and north Central Montana and into the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is not known for certain, but it is very possible that this is leftover thin smoke from some of the Alaskan wildfires which traveled around the western, southern, and now eastern periphery of the persistent low pressure system which has been present off the Pacific Northwest for quite some time. Eastern Montana/Dakotas/Minnesota/Nebraska: The area of thin to possibly moderately dense smoke described in the writeup this morning moving east across eastern Montana into the Dakotas, moved more in a southeasterly and even southerly direction during the afternoon as it pushed across the Dakotas into western Minnesota and even central Nebraska. The source of the smoke is most likely from the Judith Basin County fire in central Montana which emitted a large burst of smoke apparently rather high into the atmosphere last evening. Northeast US/Nova Scotia/Quebec: An area of thin to moderately dense smoke most likely leftover from some of the numerous fires burning in Quebec Province moved to the east-southeast and off the northeast US coast. The smoke is now passing just south and southeast of Nova Scotia over the Atlantic Ocean. Only a few fires were visible over central and west central Quebec Province this afternoon and evening which were emitting thin to moderately dense long narrow smoke plumes that were moving in a southeasterly direction. JS