Monday, May 16, 2011

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z May 17, 2011

Alberta/Saskatchewan/Northwest Territory/Eastern British
Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario:
Wildfires continue to burn over portions of central to northeast Alberta
and western Saskatchewan. Large plumes of moderately dense to very dense
smoke were seen moving north across northern and central Alberta and into
sections of southern Northwest Territory. Light to moderate smoke has
also spread across the border into eastern British Columbia. Moderately
dense to dense residual smoke from these wildfires has also pushed to
the south and east across portions of western Ontario and the Hudson
Bay region as well as over portions of eastern Manitoba. This residual
smoke is circulating in a clockwise direction under high pressure. Some
cloudiness in this region of central Canada is preventing additional
information on this area of smoke.

Central and Northern Plains/South Central Canada:
Numerous smaller fires were analyzed during the day across a large region
extending from the Central Plains to south central Canada. These fires
were generally emitting small bursts of thin to moderately dense smoke
which quickly moved away from the sources.

Southwestern and South Central US/Gulf of Mexico/Florida:
Several wildfires are still burning across southeastern Arizona, and
southwestern New Mexico as well as extreme northern Mexico just south of
the southwestern New Mexico border. Moderately dense to dense smoke plumes
were observed with these fires moving off to the northeast. Farther to the
south and west, a large mass of moderately dense to dense smoke from fires
across west central Mexico was visible moving to the east across central
Mexico in the general direction of southern Texas. Late this afternoon,
visible satellite imagery also showed a very large area of primarily
thin density smoke covering northeastern Mexico, western and southern
Texas, the central and southern Gulf of Mexico, the southern half of
Florida, and the southwestern Atlantic including the Bahamas. This large
mass of smoke was likely due to the ongoing aformentioned fires across
southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and across northern and
west central Mexico as well as additional seasonal fire activity farther
to the south in Mexico and Central America.

JS

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.