DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1630Z May 20, 2010
Northern US Plains/South Central Canada: An area of thin smoke extended from South Dakota, Minnesota, and northern Wisconsin northward into southeast Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba before wrapping eastward across southwest Ontario. A good bit of this smoke likely resulted from the numerous ag burns over the past few days over the Northern Plains. However, more dense smoke that originated from fires in Michigan on Tuesday was seen over eastern North Dakota, western Minnesota, and near the western end of Lake Superior. Southeast Canada/Northeast US: An swath of aerosols believed to be thin remnant smoke stretched from just north of Lake Ontario to just north of Maine in southeastern Quebec. This smoke may have originated from the fires in the Northern US Plains/southern part of Canada several days ago, and was analyzed over central Quebec yesterday. Southeast US: A small band of aerosols stretching along a frontal boundary over north Florida this morning is though to be remnant smoke from regional ag fires yesterday. This band extends from Jacksonville, FL west along the Florida panhandle. Another small area of thin smoke was present over western Alabama. Western Gulf of Mexico: An area of aerosols of unknown origin and composition was seen in the western Gulf of Mexico along the southern Texas coast. Alaska: A small patch of thin smoke from the large fire in central Alaska was seen drifting northwest of its origin. Also present was an unknown aerosol over northeast Alaska, which was also present yesterday and could not be identified, but was moving slowly westward. -Sheffler 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