DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z April 7, 2008
Western Gulf of Mexico: A large mass of moderately dense smoke from ongoing seasonal fires burning across portions of southern and eastern Mexico as well as Central America was visible spreading northward over the Bay of Campeche into the west central portion of the Gulf of Mexico. Kansas/Oklahoma/Missouri/Iowa: The region of eastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma continues to experience an extremely large number of seasonal fires which produced many smoke plumes during the day. The smoke plumes moved generally to the southeast but then combined into a larger mass of smoke which encompassed eastern Kansas, northeastern Oklahoma, northwestern Arkansas, the western half of Missouri, and southern Iowa. Embedded within this large mass of mainly thin smoke were patches of moderately dense to even locally dense smoke closer to the stronger fires in eastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma. The most dense batch of smoke moved from southeastern Kansas into northeastern Oklahoma during the late afternoon. The thin smoke in the northeastern portion of the area appeared to spread northeastward into southern Iowa where it became entrained in the flow around a low pressure system moving across the Northern Plains. Arizona: Thin to moderately dense smoke again spread northeastward from an ongoing fire burning in northern Gila County of central Arizona. Hawaii: Possible burning vegetation from some of the lava flows associated with the Kilauea Volcano appeared to produce a thin to moderately dense smoke plume which moved to the southwest and offshore of the Big Island. In addition, a larger mass of moderately dense to dense volcanic steam/fog (VOG) was visible moving well to the southwest of the Big Island. JS