Thursday, August 26, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z August 27, 2010

Northwest US/North Central US/South Central Canada:
Numerous wildfires burning across Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana
are producing a large area of moderately dense to very dense smoke across
a large region of the northern US and southern Canada.  An area of very
dense smoke extends across northwest Montana and into southern Alberta.
Another pocket of heavy smoke stretches from south central Saskatchewan
south into northeast Montana.  Moderately dense smoke stretches across
a large area of central/eastern Oregon, extreme northern California,
northeast into eastern Washington state and east into Idaho.  Another
pocket of moderately dense smoke extends eastward from eastern Alberta
into western/central Saskatchewan.  Lighter smoke extends as far east
as North Dakota and South Dakota.  The general direction of the smoke
is NE to E.

Minnesota/Eastern North Dakota/Southeast Manitoba/Southwest Ontario.
Numerous fires burning across the region are producing thin to moderately
dense smoke plumes moving north into southern Canada.  Most of the smoke
plumes are very thin.

Southeast US/Mississippi Valley/Southern Plains:
Many fires across Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia
and Oklahoma are producing light to moderately dense smoke plumes.
The fires producing smoke are emitting for about 2-8 hours.

Earlier Today:

North/Central US and SW Canada:
Multiple wildfires across western/central Oregon are producing light to
moderately dense smoke across north/central Oregon, eastern Washington,
northern Idaho, extreme southeastern British Columbia, southwestern
Alberta and into central/eastern Montana. A pocket of dense smoke is
seen from south/central Alberta southward into Northern Montana.

Central US:
Remnant smoke from the fires burning in Oregon and Idaho can been seen
moving southeast across NE South Dakota, southern Minnesota, most of
Iowa and northern Missouri.

Southwest Ontario/Great Lakes:
Residual smoke from wildfires burning in British Columbia during the
past week is moving across southwestern Ontario and the Great Lakes
region. This thin area of light smoke is moving E-SE across southwest
Ontario, extreme NE Minnesota, Lake Superior, NW upper Michigan, NE
Wisconsin, central Lake Michigan, southwestern lower Michigan, Lake Erie,
NE Ohio and into NW Pennsylvania.

Eastern Texas/Louisiana:
An area of mixed aerosols can be seen across eastern Texas to the lower
Mississippi River Valley and into the Gulf of Mexico. This area likely
contains some smoke from the agricultural fires burning throughout
Louisiana and along the Mississippi River Valley into Arkansas and
Mississippi.

J Kibler


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.