DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0045Z MAY 15, 2009
Gulf of Mexico/Texas coast: Thin to moderate density smoke can be seen along the western Gulf into the coastal zones of Texas west of 90W and can be traced back to continued agricultural burns over the Yucatan and N Central America. Also, a patch of unknown consistency extends from the NW Houston suburbs NW to N into the Dallas-Fort Worth area, culminating into a larger area over West and Central OK. The area is likely smoke from the aforementioned area but could be solely pollution/haze from the larger cities. The area of OK is likely a combination of this and smoke from yesterday from fires in the N Mexican state of Chihuahua. Gallina THE FORMAT OF THIS TEXT PRODUCT IS BEING MODIFIED. IT WILL NO LONGER DESCRIBE THE VARIOUS PLUMES THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVE FIRES. THESE PLUMES ARE DEPICTED IN VARIOUS GRAPHIC FORMATS ON OUR WEB SITE: JPEG: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/hms.html GIS: http://www.firedetect.noaa.gov/viewer.htm KML: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/kml.html THIS TEXT PRODUCT WILL CONTINUE TO DESCRIBE SIGNIFICANT AREAS OF SMOKE WHICH HAVE BECOME DETACHED FROM AND DRIFTED SOME DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE SOURCE FIRE, TYPICALLY OVER THE COURSE OF ONE OR MORE DAYS. IT WILL ALSO STILL INCLUDE DESCRIPTIONS OF BLOWING DUST. ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THESE CHANGES OR THE SMOKE TEXT PRODUCT IN GENERAL SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov