Saturday, August 8, 2009

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






 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.