DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1530Z July 23, 2014
SMOKE: Nearly all of the US and Canada remains affected by remnant smoke from the large boreal fires in NW Territories with some contribution from Western US fires such as the most prolific producers overnight, over East central Nevada (along the Utah boarder). Clear zones include, Alaska, BC, WA, OR, CA, W ID, W NV, S AZ, the Southeast US from the Mississippi River through North Carolina including all but the panhandle of FL. Obviously, more significant smoke is seen within the large area of thin smoke and will be described below: Northern Canada: Very near and downwind (E and ESE) of the boreal fires is nearly opaque with extremely dense smoke from Big Bear/Great Slave Lake across SW continental Nunavut, N E Manitoba into far N Ontario and the SW coastline of Hudson Bay along the axis of the rear-inflow jet to the developing cyclone over eastern Hudson Bay/W Quebec. An additional arm of very dense (though not as opaque) can be seen moving SE from Great Slave lake covering far NE Alberta, and the northern 2/3rds of Saskatchewan nearing the NE portions of Lake Winnipegosis in Manitoba, though this arm is not moving SSE, it appears to be slowly drifting NNE under stronger southerly flow or remaining somewhat stagnant Yukon Territory: Siberian smoke continues to be squeezed between the amplifying ridge over the NW Territories and the stronger westerly flow across N AK attm. This is leading to a shearing with the bulk of the moderately dense smoke moving NE across N Yukon and NW NW Territories into the Arctic Islands of Canada, but a small portion is squeezed south across SW/S Yukon, NW BC and the upper portion of SE coastal AK. Nevada/Northern US Rockies: Two large fires (one in NE Nye county, the other along the UT/NV in White Pine county, NV produced moderately dense smoke that has moving N across E ID and W WY then rotates anticyclonically over the ridge across S MT into W SD, clipping SW ND and NE WY. Southern Great Plains: A large area of murky/hazy aerosols with mixed smoke can be seen very well in Goes-West across OK/AR/S MO/SE KS and TX. Some of this area is moving back toward the west and fading, while the other portion is stretching E and NE consolidating along the frontal boundary; thinning out until getting more dense again across the Mid-Atlantic (central PA) and moving offshore from Long Island and NJ coast. 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.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/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