Tuesday, July 5, 2011

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1345Z July 5, 2011

E Canada/New England:
Yesterday's early morning and afternoon emissions from the Western
Ontario(Manitoba boarder) fire complexes has drifted eastward and can be
seen as a moderately dense to dense smoke area currently covering the E
portion of Ontario (Toronto to Ottawa), SW Quebec, and North Central NY
(Syracuse to Albany).  This is connected to a very thin to thin area of
smoke and haze that covers New England (SE ME, MA, RI) into the cloud
cover regions of SE New Brunswick, PEI and Nova Scotia.

W Ontario:
The emission from late evening/overnight post windshift/frontal passage is
moving south and SSE across Western Ontario into far NE MN and portions of
Lake Superior... this smoke is a thinner with some pockets of moderately
dense smoke (especially near the source fires).   Thin smoke area can be
seen connecting the aforementioned smoke area through the cloudy region
of NE Ontario.

South/Mid-Atlantic US Coast:
Moderately dense to dense smoke can be seen hugging the coasts from the
multiple large fire complexes across S GA and SE NC.  This smoke covers
far SE AL, S GA, barely any of N FL, SE half of SC, E one third of NC,
then extending out to sea along the frontal zone/boundary.  A light
haze/smoke can be seen wrapped back over E VA and the Delmarva under
influence of a weak shortwave ridge over the area.

New Mexico:
The large Los Alamos fire continues to pump out copious amounts of
moderately dense smoke that cover all of the NW corner of NM, SW corner
of CO and NE corner of AZ. The smoke is stuck nearly under the ridge and
so it is anticyclonically across the Four-Corners with the bulk movement
moving W or WNW across N AZ attm.

Central Canadian Wilderness:
Though fires across S NW Territories, N Alberta and Saskatchewan
have been a bit more controlled over the last week or so... a narrow
band of dense smoke can be seen on the southern side of a sheared out
deformation zone across the Canadian wilderness.  This strip is about
25-50km wide and extends from the western arm Great Slave Lake/MacKenzie
River across N Alberta to Lake Athabasca to just north of Reindeer Lake
into northcentral Manitoba.

A pocket of moderately dense midlevel smoke emitted from the fire SW of
Reindeer lake in E Saskatchewan has moved SE and is centered over the
northern riverlets of Lake Winnepeg with light smoke connected back to
the source.

NW Territories/Nunavut:
Thin smoke remains trapped in weak flow north of deformation
zone described above, but this weak flow covers much of the NW
Territories/Nunavut; from Great Bear Lake to Baffin Island and covering
nearly all of Hudson Bay.

N Alaska/E Russia:
Thin smoke from Canadian fires over a week ago continues to drift Westward
into Russia across N AK... isolated eddies and convergence zones increase
density from thin to moderately dense across the Brook Range and south
across the N Yukon River Valley.

Gallina


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

 


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.