Tuesday, June 22, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1700Z June 22, 2010

Canada:
A large area of smoke stretches across most of south central Canada
due to ongoing fires from British Columbia to Quebec. The smoke is
generally moving from west to east from eastern British Columbia across
the prairie provinces and southern Hudson Bay into southern Quebec and
into the Atlantic. Much of the smoke is light in density but substantial
areas of moderately dense to dense smoke were observed in the vicinity
of the larger fires over portions of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba
and southeast Quebec.

Southwest US into the Northern Plains and Midwest:
A moderately dense plume of smoke from the Schultz fire near Flagstaff
extended northeast to the Four Corners.  Residual light smoke from fires
over Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado that have been burning for numerous
days stretched northeastward from Arizona into the central Rockies,
northern Plains and across the Upper Midwest.

Louisiana:
Light smoke from a fire in Cameron County covered southwest Louisiana
and extreme east central Texas.

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.