DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z July 22, 2018.
NESDIS IS INVESTIGATING THE UTILITY OF THIS TEXT NARRATIVE. IF YOU FIND THIS PRODUCT VALUABLE, PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL RESPONSE TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS INDICATING HOW YOU AND/OR YOUR AGENCY USE THE INFORMATION. THANK YOU. SEND EMAIL RESPONSES TO: SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov. SMOKE: Western and Central US... Moderately dense to thick smoke fanned out to the east and to the southwest from numerous wildfires located over southwestern Oregon and down to near the Oregon-California border. The thicker smoke covered a portion of southwestern and south central Oregon, far northern California, and off the coast of northern California. A swath of moderately dense to locally thick smoke from a wildfire near the Nevada-Idaho border spread quickly to the northeast across southern Idaho. Wildfires over extreme southern British Columbia produced thick smoke which moved to the southeast and into north central and northeastern Washington. Thick smoke from the Ferguson Fire in east central California covered a portion of the Sierras. In addition, a very large area of thin density smoke attributed in part to the fires described above and a few other wildfires burning in the Western US covered a region extending from southern Oregon and northern/central California eastward and northeastward over northern Nevada, virtually all of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the western and central portion of the Dakotas. Thick smoke spread northeastward from a couple of wildfires located in northwestern and north central Colorado with a larger area of thinner density smoke linked to these wildfires and others in the Western US extending to the east and southeast over the Central Plains. North Central US... A patch of thin to moderately dense smoke appeared from the edge of a cloud deck across portions of Wisconsin, the UP of Michigan, and Minnesota. This smoke was believed to be from wildfire activity in south central and southeastern Canada. South Central Canada... Wildfires in western Ontario and southeastern Manitoba produced thick smoke which moved to the west during the day. A larger region of thin and moderately dense smoke from these fires was visible over southern and western Manitoba, and the eastern half of Saskatchewan. Eastern Canada... A swath of leftover thin density smoke likely from wildfire activity over Canada was seen stretching from eastern Quebec eastward to off the coast of Newfoundland. DUST: Caribbean... A large mass of Saharan dust was seen stretching across Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and much of the Caribbean Sea to the Yucatan Peninsula. 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/data/land/fire/currenthms.jpg GIS: ftp://satpsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/FIRE/HMS/GIS/ KML: http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/land/fire/fire.kml (fire) http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/land/fire/smoke.kml (smoke) ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THIS PRODUCT SHOULD BE SENT TO: SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov