Sunday, April 3, 2011

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0245Z April 04, 2011

East Coast:
A few areas of mostly light smoke can be seen off the east coast around
Virginia and North Carolina and then southward off the coast of South
Carolina. This is most likely remnant smoke from the numerous amount of
agricultural burns and subsequent smoke from yesterday that has since
moves eastward around the high pressure centered over the southern US.

Gulf of Mexico:
A large area of light smoke can be seen stretching across Florida from
near the Bahamas northwest into the Panhandle of Florida. The fires
from the island of the Bahamas the past several days and the remnant
smoke from the central plains that has likely rotated around the high
pressure is contributing to this. There is also another very large area
of light smoke stretching across most of the Gulf of Mexico. Within this,
an area of moderate smoke can be see from near southern Louisiana back
through portions of southeastern Texas. This smoke continues to be from
the numerous fires burning through Mexico and Central America as well as
the very large fires that have been burning over northern Mexico recently.

Northern Mexico/Southern Texas:
As mentioned above, the very large fires that continue to burn across
the northern part of Coahuila, Mexico have been producing heavy smoke
this afternoon and evening that is moving northeast into portions of
southern Texas.

Central Plains:
Numerous fires were seen again today across this region but due to
cloudiness throughout most of the day and heavy convection currently
ongoing, not a whole lot of smoke could be seen.

Western Texas/Eastern New Mexico:
Large fires across this region today produced very large and moderately
heavy smoke plumes due to the high winds across that region. In some
cases, the smoke plumes can be seen reaching as far as 200 miles away
from their point source.

Panhandle of Texas/Eastern Colorado/Western Kansas/Southern New Mexico:
A few areas of blowing dust could be seen in these region in this
evening's satellite imagery. The first could be seen across the Panhandle
region of Texas moving eastward/southeastward along the dryline in that
region. The second area could be seen moving southward through parts
of far eastern Colorado and into western Kansas where high winds have
picked up after the passage of the cold front this evening. Lastly,
a few small areas of blowing dust could be seen near the border of New
Mexico and Mexico moving eastward.


Belge


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.