DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1715Z August 21, 2013
Northern US/Central and Southern Plains/Northern Mexico/Southeast Canada: The large number of wildfires in the western US continue to generate a large quantity of smoke that is spreading across the northern tier of states across the country and into the Atlantic with an area also peeling off to the south through the Plains into northern Mexico. The smoke mainly extends from the fires in Idaho, western Montana and northwest Wyoming eastward across the Dakotas, the northern Mississippi Valley, the Great Lakes States, New England and the northern mid Atlantic, southeast Ontario and southern Quebec and finally exiting off the coast of New England and New Jersey. A large patch of smoke also drops south across the Central and Southern Plains and then curves to the west across the Texas Panhandle and southern New Mexico into northern Mexico. There were significant areas of moderate to dense smoke that were observed across Michigan and into Indiana with another area from Wisconsin and Iowa across western Missouri and eastern Kansas across central Oklahoma and the southern Texas Panhandle. More areas of moderate to dense smoke were seen near the fire source regions. California/Oregon/Washington: Several large fires were burning this afternoon and evening in the central and northern Sierras and the Klamath range in northern California. The Rim fire the central Sierras in particular was generating a tremendous amount of smoke that was lifting to the north. It was merging with smoke from fires further to the north in the Sierra and then curling back to the northwest into northwest California where additional smoke was being generated from fires in this region. The smoke then moved off the coast and wrapped counterclockwise around an upper level cyclone west of the San Francisco Bay area. An area of moderate smoke was also seen associated with fires in southwest Oregon and another in northwest Oregon. This area of smoke was moving to the north and northeast and spilling into southern Washington. Central Canada: The smoke seen over portions of northern and central Canada this morning were not detected this evening due to rapid scan operations on the GOES satellite which greatly limits coverage over northern latitudes. The smoke is likely still present and making its way slowly to the east as suggested by air quality smoke models. Ruminski 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