DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0330Z October 10, 2010
Middle to Lower Mississippi Valley: Numerous agricultural fires continue to burn throughout the middle to lower Mississippi Valley producing mainly thin to moderately dense smoke across the region. The smoke is moving east to southeast. Numerous fires are seen across southern Louisiana with light to moderately dense smoke drifting south into the Gulf of Mexico. British Columbia: Numerous fires were detected today across central British Columbia. Widespread cloudiness across the region interfered with any possible smoke detection. -Earle Earlier Today... Gulf of Mexico/Texas Coast: A large area of thin remnant smoke covers the Gulf of Mexico today with a few small patches of fresh moderate density smoke from fires burning this morning along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Most of this smoke is the result of large scale agricultural burning along the Mississippi River that has been going on for the past several days. A small patch of thin smoke was also seen lifting northward across eastern Texas and may have come from actively burning fires this morning. Central Plains/Mid Mississippi Valley: Several areas of thin remnant smoke exist along the Mississippi River in parts of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri from the ag burning that has persisted there the last few days. In addition, a separate and larger area of thin smoke from fires in Kansas/Oklahoma/north Texas and possibly other aerosols is being wrapped northward by an upper low along the Nebraska/South Dakota border. Northern Plains/Midwest/Great Lakes/Mid-Atlantic: An expansive area of thin to moderate density smoke from the fires in southeast Saskatchewan, southern Manitoba, and North Dakota spread from the source region southeast across the Midwest/Great Lakes regions and then eastward along a frontal boundary over the Mid-Atlantic region filtering off the coast. Other unknown aerosols along this boundary may have mixed in as the smoke has spread further east but the majority is still believed to be remnant smoke. Manitoba/Northwest Ontario: An area of thin remnant smoke from yesterday's fires in southern Manitoba/southeast Saskatchewan/North Dakota had gotten pulled northward by a storm system and were now moving east/southeast across Ontario/southwest Hudson Bay. California: A small plume of thin smoke could be seen off the central to southern California coast this morning. This remnant smoke is believed to be from a fire in Monterey county. -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