DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1530Z August 16, 2015
SMOKE: Northwestern/North Central US/South Central Canada: The large number of wildfires scattered across portions of the Northwestern US continued to emit tremendous quantities of smoke. The largest and most dense area of moderate to thick density smoke was visible spreading to the east across portions of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho and across Montana. The thicker smoke is also moving north to southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in southwestern Canada. In central and south-central Canada, light density plume from the fires in northwestern US, attached to the bigger plume is going through central Ontario heading northeastward to the Hudson Bay. Another light density plume is seen in eastern Saskatchewan moving through northwestern Manitoba, southeastern Northwest Territories, southwestern Nunavut, through central Hudson Bay and into Northern Quebec. Northern and Central California: Areas of low to heavy density smoke from the cluster of fires in northern California is moving west to the Pacific along the coast. The fires in central California are also producing low to moderate density smoke heading northeast in to Nevada and joining the bigger smoke produced from the fires in northwestern US. Kemal 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