DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0145Z April 11, 2011
Southern Plains and Eastern US: A large area of smoke from the large fires burning in Mexico and Texas the past several days covered much of the Southern Plains, mid Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes and then curled southward across the central and southern Appalachians into Florida and the adjoining Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. This was mainly light smoke although cloud cover over the Mississippi Valley hindered good smoke detection in this region. A couple of plumes of smoke were also observed coming from the Bahamas and moving to the west, just off the southern Florida coast. Western/Central Gulf of Mexico/Cuba: Light to moderate smoke continues to cover much of the Gulf this evening with the thickest smoke observed over the western Gulf. Most of this is smoke from the numerous fires burning over the Yucatan and Central America, although there continues to be a moderate smoke plume from the oil rigs in the Bay of Campeche that extends well to the northwest off the Texas coast. Smoke from fires in Cuba was mainly drifting to the west southwest. Texas/Oklahoma/New Mexico/northern Mexico: Large fires continue to burn over northern Mexico in Coahuila state with additional fires burning in west Texas southeast of El Paso and east of Lubbock. These fires are generating large plumes of moderately dense to dense smoke that is moving to the northeast across much of central Texas and into southwest Oklahoma. Several areas of blowing dust were also noted this evening. Strong winds associated with a frontal system produced an area of blowing dust over the eastern Texas Panhandle which moved into western Oklahoma. Another dust plume was seen coming from the White Sands of south central New Mexico and was moving to the east. Blowing dust in northern Chihuahua state was mainly moving to the south, although a portion of it was moving east into the Big Bend area of Texas. Finally, an area of blowing dust was over western Sonora state and it moved south into the central Gulf of California. Ruminski 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