Tuesday, June 15, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1515Z June 15, 2010

Yukon Territory/NW Northwest Territories:
A large ball of thin to moderate smoke from fires over N Alaska and Yukon
Territories earlier this week has finally gotten caught in westerly flow
and is now moving SEward. Current the ball covers a large area from the
northern arms of Great Bear Lake to the AK boarder from the Alaska Range
to the Brooks Range.

E Northwest Territories/Nunavut:
Dense smoke from yesterday's output of fires along the SE shores of
eastern Great Slave Lake all of E NW Territories and all of continental
Nunavut.  The most dense area is covering continental Nunavut and the
entire area is moving rapidly due E.

Washington:
A small pocket of thin smoke can still be seen in the Swly flow on
the eastern side of a well defined upper level cyclone that continues
to sink S over Puget Sound this morning.  The smoke covers all of E WA
(about to cross over into the N ID stovepipe) and the northern dry plains
of OR moving into the NW Blue Mtns.  This smoke can be traced back to
fires in NE AK and Yukon earlier this week.

N US Great Plains/Manitoba/Ontario:
A large upper level cyclone is moving across MN but thin to moderate
smoke has been pulled Sward into the US from the large fires over N
Alberta/Saskatchewan and S NW Territories from last few days.  The smoke
covers nearly all of SD and ND with a small portion of E MT, and North
Central Nebraska being affected as well.  The area of smoke is then
connected in SE Saskatchewan/W Manitoba into N Manitoba to Hudson Bay on
the western side of upper level ridge (fed by SEly wrap back flow from
aforementioned cyclone).  Nwly jet flow across N Mantioba and N Ontario
is pushing moderately dense smoke across N Ontario where it slows down
and becomes more dense towards  James Bay.

Quebec/SE Ontario/New England:
Numerous large fires across the forests of central Quebec near Lac
Mistassini and near Nemiscau produced dense plumes last night that can
still be traced S crossing the St. Lawerence into NW ME, and extending
from Nemiscau to Ottawa, respectively. Thin to moderate smoke from earlier
output yesterday and Sunday under the influence of strong SSEly jet have
covered N VT/NH/ME and SW tip of Nova Scotia intot he Atlantic before
it begins to swing more E and NE into strengthening upper level coastal
low over Newfoundland.

S GA/N FL/Coastal SC/Coastal NC:
A large area of mixed aerosols (mostly haze...maybe small amounts of
smoke) can be seen across SE AL through S GA/N FL out into the Atlantic
near 32N69.5W and further... with an arm/area extending Nward along the
coastlines of GA/SC/NC.

Please see graphic below for smoke from fires in New Mexico and SE
Arizona...as smoke remains attached to their source fires.

Gallina

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.