DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1830Z April 10, 2011
Southern Plains to Great Lakes: A large area of smoke, possibly mixed with some blowing dust caused by yesterday's strong winds over the dry terrain of north Mexico/New Mexico, covered the central US from southwest Texas northeastward to Lake Michigan/southwest Michigan state. Moderately dense to dense smoke was present over parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas with another area of moderately dense smoke over Illinois and the extreme southern end of Lake Michigan. While some of this smoke came from the agricultural burning in the Central Plains, especially eastern Kansas, several wildfires that broke out yesterday in west Texas, the Texas panhandle, eastern New Mexico, and southeast Colorado are largely responsible for the thicker densities of remnant smoke moving to the northeast. In addition, large uncontrolled wildfires continue to burn in the northern Mexico state of Coahuila that still produced dense smoke yesterday across the Texas border. Indiana to Southeast US coast/Eastern Gulf of Mexico: A plume of thin smoke stretched southeast from Indiana/southern Lake Michigan across the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia before spreading out off the Southeast US coast. Pockets of moderate density smoke were seen off the coast of Georgia. This smoke then drifted southward over the Bahamas and wrapped back westward across most of Florida into the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Most of this remnant smoke is believed to have come from the fires in the Central Plains although some could also be from the fires in the southern parts of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi yesterday. Western/Central Gulf of Mexico/Cuba: Moderate to dense smoke covers most of the western Gulf of Mexico this morning as large amounts of burning continue in the Yucatan Peninsula and other parts of Central America. In addition, a very long plume of moderately dense smoke about 420 miles in length could be seen originating from one of the oil rigs in the eastern Gulf of Campeche today drifting northward. Remnant smoke drifting in the central Gulf was thinner than that in the eastern or western Gulf, but was being filled with additional smoke coming from Cuba. 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