DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z June 06, 2011
Much of North America is awash in smoke this evening. A significant portion of the smoke over the eastern two thirds of the contiguous US is from the massive Wallow fire southeast Arizona which has been burning out of control for the past 4 or 5 days. The thickest smoke extends from eastern Arizona through New Mexico, eastern Colorado, western Texas, western Kansas, much of Nebraska, eastern South Dakota, southern Minnesota and much of Iowa. A large number of agricultural fires over eastern Arkansas and Louisiana and western Mississippi are contributing to the smoke in the lower Mississippi valley. A large number of fires continue to burn over northwest and north central Mexico and are generating smoke that continues to drift over northern Mexico and much of Texas and the northwest Gulf of Mexico. A fire over far eastern North Carolina (the Pains Bay fire) is producing an area of moderately dense to dense smoke that is drifting south over the Atlantic and also north into northeast North Carolina. The massive wildfires in northern Alberta near Lake Athabasca are again producing very dense smoke. Today's smoke and remnant smoke from the past couple of days is drifting to the southeast and extends from the fires to Lake Winnipeg and into western Ontario. An area of blowing dust was kicked up this afternoon/evening over northeast Arizona and extended into extreme southeast Utah and western Colorado. Another area of blowing dust was seen over northern Utah into southwest Wyoming. Strong westerly winds were kicking up the dust in this area and carrying it to the east. Ruminski THIS TEXT PRODUCT IS PRIMARILY INTENDED TO DESCRIBE SIGNIFICANT AREAS SMOKE ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVE FIRES AND SMOKE WHICH HAS BECOME DETACHED FROM THE FIRES AND DRIFTED SOME DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE SOURCE FIRE..TYPICALLY OVER THE COURSE OF ONE OR MORE DAYS. AREAS OF BLOWING DUST ARE ALSO DESCRIBED. USERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO VIEW A GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF THESE AND OTHER PLUMES WHICH ARE LESS EXTENSIVE AND STILL ATTACHED TO THE SOURCE FIRE 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 ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THIS PRODUCT SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov