Tuesday, May 11, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z May 12, 2010

Updated to include Southwestern Canada...

Southwestern Canada:
An aerosol of unknown origin and composition was seen in visible imagery
just prior to sunset across a good portion of Alberta and Saskatchewan
provinces of southwestern Canada.

Gulf of Mexico/South Central and Southeastern US:
An expansive area of low to locally moderately dense smoke covered a
large portion of the Gulf of Mexico from central and southern Florida
towards the Texas coast. The smoke also extended south to cover most
of the Bay of Campeche. It is not known how far inland the smoke had
spread but some evidence of it existed in visible satellite imagery early
this evening which appeared to show an aerosol likely composed at least
partly by smoke spreading northward across much of Texas and Oklahoma,
the western half of Louisiana, and a portion of Arkansas. Farther to the
east, the smoke which had been detected inland over the Florida panhandle
and southern Alabama earlier this morning, was no longer discernible
due to cloudiness in the region. Nearly all of the smoke covering the
Gulf of Mexico and the south central and southeastern states is believed
to have originated from the tremendous number of seasonal agricultural
burns continuing in Mexico and Central America.

Southwestern and South Central US:
This was another afternoon and evening of rather widespread blowing
dust. An area of moderately dense to locally dense blowing dust
originating from point sources in northeastern Arizona and northwestern
New Mexico moved northeastward across far southeastern Utah and
southwestern Colorado toward central Colorado. Additional streaks of
blowing dust developed late in the day across the southern third of
New Mexico including White Sands as well as east central New Mexico
and northwestern Texas. Some of this blowing dust, fanned by strong
southwesterly winds, had reached as far as the Oklahoma panhandle by
sunset. Farther to the south and west, another patch of blowing dust
was moving to the northeast from a point source just on the Mexican
side of the border with southeastern Arizona. Even more blowing dust may
have existed over northern Mexico and far southwestern Texas with winds
gusting to 50mph, but cloudiness in the region prevented dust detection
in satellite imagery.

JS

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.