Tuesday, July 12, 2005

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THRU 1500Z JULY 12, 2005

Alaska/Western Canada:
There are enough breaks in the clouds this morning to see a very large
area of smoke stretching from south central Alaska eastward well into
northwestern Canada. Several large active fires across Alaska are
responsible for this smoke. The smoke has been generally moving eastward.

Canada/Far Northern and Northeastern US:
The extremely large Saskatchewan fires continue to produce an enormous
amount of smoke that is visible this morning across a good portion of
central and eastern Canada. Some of this smoke appears to have been pulled
southward possibly as far as the western Great Lakes region including
northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of
Michigan. This could be actually a combination of smoke and haze. Farther
to the east, some of this huge area of smoke (or a combination of smoke
and haze) appears to be spreading southeastward across New York state
around a low pressure system off the Canadian Maritimes. This low also
is responsible for a smaller area of thin/diffuse smoke, which had moved
offshore a couple of days ago, to spread back to the west and southwest
into far southeastern Canada and possibly into northern Maine.

Southern Arizona/Southern New Mexico/Southwestern Texas:
GOES-10 visible imagery this morning shows what is likely a combination of
smoke and leftover blowing dust across extreme southern Arizona, southern
New Mexico, and southwestern Texas. Likely sources of the smoke include
a large fire across Baja California, and several large fires over far
southern Arizona, northwestern Mexico (just south of the AZ border), and
southwestern New Mexico. The portion of the smoke/dust area over southern
Arizona and Mexico has been moving southward while the smoke/dust over
western Texas has been spreading slowly off to the northeast.

 


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.