DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1630Z August 08, 2009
Quebec/Nova Scotia/New Brunswick/Maine/North Atlantic: A narrow band of thin smoke can be seen in both GOES-West and East within the large scale ridging on the the western side of large upper lows over Labrador Sea and Cabot Strait. This covers portions of Central and SE Quebec through the end of the St. Lawrence River (where it becomes the Seaway) into all of Maine and W NB then curling SEward around the cyclone covering S Nova Scotia and the Gulf of Maine into the Grand Banks area of the North Atlantic. This smoke is from output of smoke from fires in AK, Yukon Ter. And BC over the last week. N AL/N GA: A very narrow strip of thin smoke can be seen across N AL and GA that has maintained a thick enough consistency to be seen even after passing through the exit region of the jet and being on the southside of the jet has rotated Sward along the periphery of the large scale ridge over the Central US. California/Oregon/Washington/S BC: A small pocket of thin smoke has been trapped on the western side of a well defined upper low over SE ID and Nwly onshore flow. This area covers nearly all of N California with highest densities over the Northern Valley. This is smoke from the S BC fires, and is still connected by a small tail of low level smoke that is hugging the eastern flanks of the Cascades in OR into central WA and the valleys of S BC. Alberta/S NW Ter./Saskatchewan/Manitoba/NW Ontario/SE Hudson Bay: Moderate to very dense smoke covers a large portion of W Canada from fires in AK/Yukon and BC over the past few days. Cloud cover over BC makes in difficult to see the western extent of the plume but it appears the Rockies may be blocking some of the smoke with the southern Canadian Rockies not covered at this time (except for extremely thin densities). Still a large dense area covers N Sask./ext. S NW Ter. covering Lake Athabasca to Reindeer Lake; the smoke then narrows into a line across the lakes of Manitoba into N Ontario and S Hudson Bay under the influence of the strong Nwly jet that is streaming across the SW periphery of the large upper low in the N Bay. Alaska: Large amounts of weather clouds make detection of AK smoke though pockets of clearing still show thin smoke extending across much of central AK (north of the Denali Range but well south of the Brooks range). This smoke likely connects up the larger dense areas described above through the Yukon Territory. Gallina 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.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/land/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