Monday, August 24, 2009

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0245Z August 25, 2009

Southern Canada/Northern US:
Earlier Today:
An area of light to moderately dense smoke spreads across parts of S
British Columbia, NE Washington, N Idaho, NW Montana and SW Alberta.
A pocket of moderately dense smoke is positioned over S British
Columbia/Alberta, and N Idaho/Montana.  A second pocket of moderately
dense smoke is seen across a large section of NW Montana.  Smoke is from
wildfires burning in Washington State and most likely British Columbia.
The smoke is moving east in direction.

Currently:
Smoke has spread east into southern central/eastern Alberta, southern
Saskatchewan and a large section of northern/central Montana.
The wildfires burning in southern British Columbia are producing an
area of moderately dense to dense smoke across the province and moving
mostly north.  Some of the moderately dense smoke has moved south into
north central Washington State.

Northern Baja/Southern California:
A fire located about 120 km south of the California border is producing
a large area of moderately dense to dense smoke moving north and reaching
extreme southern California (only light smoke reaching this area).

A fire just south of the Salton Sea is producing only light smoke moving
northeast and nearing the Arizona border.  Earlier in the day the fire
emitted moderately dense smoke towards the N across the Salton Sea.

J Kibler

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.