Tuesday, June 6, 2006

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1530Z June 06, 2006.

Alaska/Western Canada:
Clouds have spread over the large fire in the Yukon Delta National
Wildlife Refuge in SW Alaska which is inhibiting smoke detection in the
vicinity of this fire. Clouds are also covering northern Saskatchewan
Province of western Canada. However, outside of the cloudiness affecting
Alaska and western Canada, early morning GOES-West imagery depicts
relatively thin bands of smoke which extend from eastern Alaska across
northwestern Canada between Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake of
the Northwestern Territories. Another very long swath of what is likely
relatively thin detached smoke stretches from central British Columbia
Province of southwestern Canada to central Saskatchewan Province of west
central Canada. The source regions of these detached areas of smoke
are likely from recent large fires burning in Russia as well as the
southwestern Alaskan fire in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge
and the fires in northern Saskatchewan.

Central US:
Early morning GOES-West imagery showed a rather thick batch of
concentrated haze which covered eastern Nebraska, much of Iowa,
southeastern Minnesota, and northern Missouri. A definitive determination
of smoke content in this batch of concentrated haze could not be made
based on the locations of yesterday's fires and resultant movement of
the smoke plumes.

Southern/Southeastern US/Gulf of Mexico:
Moderate haze was evident using a combination of GOES-West and GOES-East
early morning visible imagery across the region including much of Texas
and Louisiana, a good portion of the Gulf of Mexico and Florida. A very
small amount of smoke may exist within this area although a definite
connection to a particular source is not possible. A few fires yesterday
in southern Louisiana were emitting smoke plumes which were spreading
southward into the western Gulf of Mexico, while at least one fire in
Florida was producing some smoke. The fires across Mexico and Central
America are no where near as prominent as a couple of weeks ago so any
smoke contribution from them well up over the Gulf of Mexico and the
Southern US should be relatively minor.

Eastern Canada:
The fire over eastern Quebec Province of eastern Canada was still
producing moderate to locally dense smoke this morning which was moving
mostly in a southeastward direction. Some of the detached smoke from this
fire had spread across the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland Island.

JS

 


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.