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