DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THRU 0300Z JULY 04, 2005
Alaska: Several fires in central Alaska northwest of Fairbanks are producing smoke that is moving to the east and extends to the Canadian border where it mixes with a mass of clouds. Canada: A broad area of smoke generated over the past few days from the fires in Alaska and the Yukon Territory is mixing with smoke from fires now seen over northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. This thick area of smoke extends from Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories southeastward across northeast Alberta and northern Saskatchewan, covering Lake Athabasca, and into northwest Manitoba. The smoke is thickest across Alberta and western Saskatchewan and the whole mass is generally rotating anticyclonically with the northern edge being drawn further north ahead of a frontal system. Southwest: The most intense fire this evening producing the thickest and most extensive smoke plume is the complex burning over southeast Nevada. The smoke from this fire extends east and southeast into central Arizona and reaches nearly to the Four Corners area. The blazes over central (Cave Creek), southwest (east of Gila Bend in the Maricopa Mts) and northwest Arizona (near Grand Canyon) are producing lesser plumes of smoke that are mainly moving to the east-northeast. A cluster of fires over southwest New Mexico in the Gila and Apache-Sitgraeves National Forests are producing smoke plumes extending eastward across the state. Northwest: A fire in the Okanogan national forest near Winthrop is producing a smoke plume extending to the east and southeast. Ruminski