DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z July 31, 2010
Western/Central Canada/Northern US Plains/Great Lake region: A large and expansive area of moderate to dense smoke covered a large section of western and central Canada and extended into the north central part of North Dakota. Smoke this evening remained stretched from the Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia across the Northwest Territories and western Nunavut, southeastward over parts of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Hudson Bay, Ontario, the northern Great Lakes region, and western Quebec. The large area of smoke originated from three areas of concentrated fire activity; northern Saskatchewan and the southeastern portions of the Northwest Territories and northwestern British Columbia and the southern Yukon Territory. Another area of moderately dense smoke over portions of southern British Columbia and Alberta was the result of numerous fires burning in south central British Columbia and a few in north central Washington state. By this evening, much of this secondary area of smoke had started to merge with the larger mass of remnant smoke over Canada. Northeast Canada: A plume of aerosols believed to be remnant smoke from the wildfires in western/central Canada was still seen this evening being swept off the coast of Labrador and wrapped into an upper low over the Arctic. Mid-Atlantic/Northeast US: A band of aerosols believed to be remnant smoke transported from the Canada fires southeastward across the Great Lakes yesterday was continued to move eastward this evening further from the Eastern Seaboard. The northern end of this aerosol stretched over Nova Scotia. Northwestern US/Southern Albera/ Southern Saskatchewan: A quick moving storm system was seen transporting a band of aerosol along with it to the east. Some of this aerosol over east Montana, southwest Saskatchewan, and southeast Alberta is believed to be smoke from fires in Washington yesterday though the rest across parts of Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and northwest Montana may be blowing dust or some other unknown aerosol. 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