DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z July 18, 2007
California/Nevada/Oregon/Idaho/Washington/Montana/Southwestern Canada: Numerous wildfires across northern Nevada, southern and west central Idaho, and central and eastern Oregon were emitting large quantities of smoke which spread mainly to the north and northeast from the source points. Cloudiness across the region prevented some details concerning the density of the smoke but a few breaks in the clouds showed patches of at least moderately dense smoke over the entire areas stretching from central Nevada across eastern Oregon, the western half of Idaho, eastern Washington, western Montana, and southwestern Canada. Closer to the fires, dense smoke was observed moving to the north especially from the fires in Washoe, Lander, Eureka, and Elko Counties of Nevada and Owyhee County of southwestern Idaho. Farther to the south, a very dense smoke plume was visible moving to the northeast from the ongoing fire in central Santa Barbara County of southern California. Residual smoke from this fire also moved far to the northeast across northeastern California and western Nevada. Central US: An incredibly large expanse of mainly thin smoke from the numerous fires in the western states was visible especially just after sunrise and just prior to sunset with the favorable viewing angle extending from Southwestern Canada and Montana eastward over the Dakotas and Minnesota then stretching southward across the entire Central US all the way down into Texas. A few patches of moderately dense smoke were embedded within this large area primarily over the Central Plains. Additionally, numerous smaller fires believed to be mainly of the agricultural variety were detected across the western and central portions of Kansas and Oklahoma. Some of these fires were producing thin smoke plumes which moved off to the north. The concentrated area of fires across central Kansas and central Oklahoma had produced enough small smoke plumes that the smoke had consolidated into a somewhat larger patch of thin smoke. Canada/Great Lakes Region: Scattered intense fires across the central and southern portions of the Northwest Territories, and over northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, and northern Manitoba Provinces were responsible for a large elongated swath of smoke which extended from Great Bear Lake southeastward all the way to southern Ontario and Quebec Provinces as well as Lake Superior and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The smoke moving to the southeast within this large region was at least moderately dense. However, very dense smoke continued to be emitted by a number of the fires in northwestern and central Canada. JS