DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z July 3, 2009
Southern Plains to Southeast US: Thin to moderately dense smoke and haze covered parts of eastern New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana with thin smoke also stretching eastward across Mississippi and Alabama to the Florida panhandle. A thin haze can then be seen just off the Southeast coast stretching northeastward along a frontal boundary to just east of the Mid-Atlantic region. Much of the smoke seen over the southern US was leftover from the numerous fires that were burning during the past two days across Kansas and Oklahoma. Most of the moderate density smoke was located over Texas. Southwest Canada: Two separate bands of SO2 stretched to the east from the Pacific Ocean across central British Columbia, central and central Alberta, central Saskatchewan, and north and central Manitoba. The northern band appeared to contain a greater concentration of SO2 than the band to the south. Northern Plains/Midwest: A light haze still existed across eastern North and South Dakota, western Minnesota, Iowa, eastern Nebraska, northeast Kansas and part of Missouri. It is believed this haze is mostly composed of remnant SO2 that has migrated southward from Canada. Northeast Canada: A large area of unknown aerosols was positioned from northern Hudson Bay across eastern Nunavut and extreme northern Quebec before reaching the Labrador Sea. Also thin to moderate density smoke, likely from the large wildfire seen along the Quebec/Labrador border yesterday, was seen along and just off the Labrador coast. Alaska: Thin to moderate remnant smoke was seen over south central Alaska with several active fires in the area are also adding additional moderate to very dense smoke to the mixture. SO2 from volcanic activity covers most of the western half of the state with the most concentrated areas of SO2 over the extreme northwest and southwest parts of Alaska this evening. Sheffler More information on the areas of smoke described above as well as others can be found at the locations listed below. 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