Saturday, March 12, 2011

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0145Z March 13, 2011

Central Plains through Southern Mid-Atlantic:
A large area of light smoke is seen extending from central Oklahoma
eastward through southern Missouri/northern Arkansas/northern Mississippi
and northern Alabama/Tennessee/southern Kentucky and across majority
of North Carolina and Virginia.  Plume does extending to just off the
coast of NC and VA. Source of smoke appears to be connected to numerous
wildfires and agricultural burns seen across Oklahoma, Missouri and
Arkansas that have been burning for a few days now. Some of the larger
smoke producing fires are seen burning across eastern Oklahoma.

Northeastern Gulf of Mexico:
An area of remnant light to moderately dense smoke continues to track
northward across the northeastern Gulf of Mexico this evening. Northern
portions of this plume are seen moving across portions of the western
Florida panhandle in this evening's satellite imagery.

Warren


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. THE SMOKE TEXT PRODUCT IN
GENERAL SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov

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.