DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z May 22, 2009
South and Central Plains: The large area of thin remnant smoke from yesterday's fires in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana could be seen again this evening just before dusk after having progressed a little to the west during the day. The smoke stretched from the Texas coast through east Texas into eastern Oklahoma as of the last visible image in this area at 0115Z. Minnesota/North Dakota/south central Canada: The remnant smoke observed this morning over parts of North Dakota and Minnesota could no longer be seen. However, an new area of thin smoke was seen in visible imagery over southeast Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba just before sunset moving southeastward towards northern Minnesota. The smoke appeared to be coming from the many active agricultural fires in this part of south central Canada today. Oregon: Multiple moderately dense to very dense smoke plumes were present this evening over southwest Oregon from active wildfires burning in the forested land along the Cascades and along the Coastal Mountains. The smoke from the fires closer to the coast was primarily moving south while the smoke from the fires along the Cascades was seen moving mostly eastward. Sheffler 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