Tuesday, July 19, 2005

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THRU 1730Z JULY 19, 2005

Alaska/Northwestern Canada:
Abundant cloudiness still covers a good portion of Alaska today making
fire and smoke detection difficult.  Morning GOES-10 Visible imagery
shows smoke from the  the widespread batch of intense fires burning
across northwestern Canada between Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake
has moved southward now into northern British Columbia and northern
Alberta Province.

Southeastern Canada:
A synoptic scale weather system has moved into eastern Canada this morning
bringing a large mass of cloudiness and areas of rain. This is making
it difficult to detect the presence of smoke or any of the large fires
which were visible yesterday. It would appear as though the large area
of smoke present over southeastern Canada yesterday, has likely been
pushed even farther eastward over the Atlantic and dispersed somewhat
by this storm system.

Western U.S.:
GOES-10 Visible imagery this morning shows a widespread batch of smoke
covering many states across the central and southern portions of the
western U.S. This area of smoke appears to be trapped under a large
sprawling ridge over this region. The morning sun angle revealed smoke
covering a portion of southern Idaho, southern Wyoming, western Colorado,
western New Mexico, most of Arizona and Utah, southeastern California,
and the eastern half of Nevada. Several large fires were still detected
burning across the western US especially over northern Nevada and northern
and central Arizona.

 


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.