DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1445Z UTC August 18, 2007
California/Nevada: The large Zaca fire in Santa Barbara County in southern California continues to produce extensive smoke over the Southwest. Very dense smoke extended to the northeast across the southern Sierra Mountains and spreads out to cover much of central Nevada. Southwestern Canada/Northwestern United States/Northern Plains: Numerous persistent fires in the Northwest United States and southern British Columbia are producing smoke which covers northern Idaho and also north and western Montana. This smoke extends over southern Alberta and Saskatchewan before stretching eastward through southern Manitoba and western Ontario province of Canada. In addition, a band of smoke stretches from northern British Columbia and southern Northwest Territories, southwestward through Alberta and Saskatchewan where it meets with the aforementioned area of smoke. Wow. East of the Mississippi Valley and the Southeastern United States: A combination of thin smoke and haze covers much of the non-weather cloud region of the Midwest and central/southern Atlantic coastal plain, including the area from Illinois/Indiana through the Ohio Valley and central Appalachian Mountains, to southern Virginia and North Carolina. Another wide band of similar haze stretches along the tail-end of a frontal boundary from coastal South Carolina, through southern Georgia and northern Florida. Baldwin