DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z September 19, 2016
Smoke: California/Nevada: Moderately dense to thick smoke from the Soberanes Fire in Monterey County of west central California fanned out both to the southwest and offshore and inland to the east and northeast. Farther to the east, the batch of moderately dense to thick smoke from the Owens Fire in Mono County of the Sierra Nevada range exhibited similar behavior with smoke spreading out in multiple directions. A large mass of thinner density smoke from both of these fires stretched from west central Nevada to well off the coast of central and southern California. Farther to the north, a wildfire in southern Modoc County of northeastern California was producing a relatively narrow but moderately dense to locally thick smoke plume which spread to the east across northern Nevada. Arizona/New Mexico: A sizable area of thin density smoke attributed to fires in both northern and central Arizona as well as a couple of fires in northwestern and north central New Mexico, was visible over much of northern and central Arizona and northwestern and north central New Mexico. Moderately dense to locally thick smoke was analyzed closer to the cluster of fires in central Arizona. Utah/Colorado: A number of fires and visible smoke plumes were seen scattered across Utah as well as western and southwestern Colorado with the most significant plume emanating from a fire in eastern Beaver County of south central Utah. This moderately dense to thick plume moved to the east and northeast during the afternoon. JS 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