DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0400Z August 9, 2013
Lower Mississippi River Valley: An area of mostly thin smoke was seen from northern Louisiana/Arkansas northeast across northwest Mississippi, western Tennessee, western Kentucky, southeast Missouri, and southern Illinois. This is smoke from several agricultural fires in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas yesterday and today. Western US: Numerous wildfires burning in the western US produced thin to moderately dense smoke that spread eastward across Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Colorado this evening, mixing with smoke from Canadian wildfires. Alaska/Canada/North Central US/Great Lakes Region: Extensive amounts of smoke from wildfires in Alaska and northwestern Canada covered a very large portion of North America this evening. Moderately dense to very dense smoke was present over northeast Alaska, parts of the Arctic Ocean, the Yukon and Northwest Territories, Nunavut, northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, and northern Manitoba. Thin smoke stretched from Alaska eastward to the Labrador Sea and southeastward to the Dakotas/Minnesota/Wisconsin as well as southern James Bay in Canada. The smoke mixed with other smoke from over the northern US that was coming from western US fires. Dust: Gulf of Mexico/Texas/Louisiana/Oklahoma/Arkansas: A large area of elevated Saharan dust that continued to slowly move westward across the western half of the Gulf of Mexico and could also be seen over central and eastern Texas, southeast Oklahoma, Arkansas, and western Louisiana. Southwestern US: Gusty winds caused blowing dust across western Arizona, southern Nevada, and southeast California this evening. Some ofthe blowing dust mixed with smoke from two wildfires burning in southern California. The dust was observed from 22Z-0230Z (sunset). Sheffler THIS TEXT PRODUCT IS PRIMARILY INTENDED TO DESCRIBE SIGNIFICANT AREAS OF 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