DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0102Z August 23, 2013
Eastern Canada: An area of thin smoke can be seen moving NE across Nova Scotia, NE New Brunswick, PEI, the Eastern Gulf of St. Lawrence and W Newfoundland into the southern Labrador Strait. This smoke is likely associated with the fires out in WY, MT, and ID from earlier this week. It is likely it is connected to the area described below, but very cloudy conditions across the Eastern Great Lakes and New England make it difficult to confirm this...and hence not drawn in within analysis. Central United States/Northern Rockies: A very large area of high altitude thin smoke with isolated pockets of moderately dense smoke cover much of the Central US from the ongoing fires across ID, MT, WY. Closer to the source across MT, moderately dense smoke is moving NE and covers all of MT moving into parts of SE Alberta and S Saskatchewan. The smoke moves E across ND, SD before slowing down into a long, drawn out, deformation zone across the mid-Mississippi River Valley...this consolidation is being pulled east across IA, N IL, IN, while rotating anticyclonically South and SW across MO, KS, OK, AR eventually into a with a narrow band (75km wide) moving due west across the N TX panhandle and the northern 1/3 of NM into far E AZ. West Coast: The enormous Rim fire in the Central CA Sierras is producing a tremendous amount of convectively dense smoke that is moving north and merging with output from the American fire (west of Lake Tahoe). This very dense smoke is moving due north and covers the the NE portions of CA and NW Nevada before fanning out under highly diffluent flow on the east side of a deep upper level cyclone over SW Oregon. This divergent flow is leading to half the smoke moving back NW, then W, then SW across central OR and S WA toward the center of the upper low; while the other half continues N and NE cover E OR, W and Cent. ID into W MT. Central Canada: Thin smoke, likely from quieting fires across the NW Territories and N Saskatchewan can be seen on the SE side of the upper ridge over Central Canada. This places the smoke over the W Hudson Bay into far NE Manitoba and N Ontario moving S and SE. Gallina 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