Tuesday July 8, 2008

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z JULY 9, 2008

Eastern North Carolina/Middle Atlantic Coast/Northeastern Coast:
Possible leftover thin smoke from the long burning swamp fire in eastern
North Carolina was seen in visible imagery spreading to the northeast from
northeastern North Carolina across southeastern Virginia, the Delmarva
coast, and eastern New Jersey, to along the Long Island and southern
New England coast. The actual fire believed to be responsible for this
possible smoke was not visible in satellite imagery during the day.

Louisiana:
A narrow thin smoke plume moved off to the northwest from a fire in
central St. Bernard Parish of southeastern Louisiana. The smoke plume
appeared to move across a portion of the New Orleans metro area during
the late afternoon.

California:
Once again, a large amount of moderately dense to dense smoke was
present across much of California during the day. The fires in northern
California appeared to flare significantly up during the day resulting
in a particularly dense area of smoke which covered much of northern
California. Movement of this mass of dense smoke over northern California
was erratic with some spreading in virtually all directions. Farther to
the south, smoke from the Kern County fire was not as intense as yesterday
with a somewhat more narrow band of moderately dense to dense smoke moving
to the west. Smoke from the fire in Santa Barbara County moved mainly to
the south and offshore. Details concerning the extent and density of the
smoke was not easily obtained from satellite imagery due to the presence
of low clouds along the coast and offshore. The Monterey County fire was
still emitting a significant amount of moderately dense to dense smoke
which initially moved offshore, but some of the smoke moved back inland
later in the day.

Western and Northwestern US to the North Central US/Southern and
Southwestern Canada:
An extremely large region of mainly thin patchy smoke was seen in early
morning and early evening visible satellite imagery (with the favorable
lower sun angle) covering a very large region from Washington, Oregon,
and Nevada eastward to the upper Great Lakes region. The thickest portion
of this smoke appeared to be over southeastern Idaho.

Colorado:
A fire in central Mesa County of western Colorado produced a moderately
dense to locally dense smoke plume which fanned out as it moved in a
southward direction.

Washington:
A couple of fires in central and south central Washington were emitting
moderately dense to dense smoke which moved to the southeast.

Canada:
Significant fires were detected scattered across the region extending
from south of Lake Athabasca in northern Saskatchewan Province to west
of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. Smoke from these fires
was moving primarily in a northward direction although some of the smoke
was also fanning out to the east and west. The fires just north of Lake
Athabasca were producing a very dense batch of smoke.

Alsaka:
Despite the presence of widespread cloudiness, at least 3 rather large
fires were detected in satellite imagery over east central Alaska. The
cloudiness did prevent smoke detection, however given the size of the
heat signatures in satellite data, smoke is likely present there. Earlier
in the morning, a large batch of mainly thin smoke was observed across
extreme northeastern Alaska, northwestern Canada, and points northward
into the Arctic. More fires were also detected over portions of western
Alaska with at least 2 visible smoke plumes observed from fires in
northwestern Alaska. These plumes were moving to the northeast.

Hawaii:
A possible smoke plume mixed with the volcanic steam/fog (VOG) was
visible moving to the west-southwest and off the south coast of the
Big Island. This possible smoke was believed to be due to lava flows
encountering and burning vegetation. The VOG was very prominent and
extended well off to the west and northwest of the islands.

JS





 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.