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.