Sunday, August 20, 2017

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0330Z August 21, 2017

SMOKE:
Northern US and California...
A large swath of remnant smoke, mainly from the long burning wildfires
in Oregon, Washington, northern California, Idaho and Montana, was seen
covering a large portion of the northern US and northern and central
California. From California and southwest Oregon the smoke extended to the
east across southern Idaho, northern Wyoming and eastern Montana into the
northern Plains, upper Mississippi Valley and western Great Lakes. The
smoke also covered much of New England and the northern mid Atlantic
into the Gulf of Maine. The extent of the smoke was quite uncertain over
western Montana and northern Idaho as cloud cover made detection of the
smoke difficult. The thickest smoke was seen over northern California and
southwest Oregon. This batch of smoke was moving to the south southwest
and extending into the Pacific off of much of the California coast.

A separate area of mostly light remnant smoke was seen over central and
eastern Washington.

Pacific Ocean/Hawaii...
An area of light remnant smoke was seen over the Pacific extending from
the western main Hawaiian Islands north northeast to near 50N138W and
then curling back to the southeast.

Eastern Canada...
Remnant smoke was seen over most of eastern Canada covering much of
eastern Ontario, western and central Quebec, all of Hudson Bay and nearly
all of Nunavut. A large patch of moderately dense smoke covered the high
Arctic and the eastern Canadian archipelago.

Two stripes of light smoke were seen stretching from northwest to
southeast. One extended from the southern Yukon/Northwest Territories
border to west central Alberta and the other from northwest Northwest
Territories to the northwest border of Alberta.

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.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

 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.