DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1530Z June 07, 2006.
Alaska/Canada: Widespread cloudiness now covers a good portion of the western two-thirds of Alaska which is preventing any smoke detection across the state either from the large fire which had been burning in the southwestern part of the state or from the fires noted recently in Russia. Early morning GOES-West imagery though did show what appeared to be smoke or a combination of haze containing leftover smoke in several batches. One area extended across the Northwest Territories from west of the Great Slave Lake to the western portion of Nunavut Province. Some of this smoke also appeared to be spreading southeastward around the western periphery of a low pressure circulation centered near the southwestern portion of Hudson Bay. Patches of the possible smoke were observed over the area stretching from northern Alberta and northern Saskatchewan Provinces southeastward across Lake Winnipeg and Central Manitoba Province to Ontario Province just north of Lake Superior. Clouds in the eastern portion of this area made additional smoke detection impossible. The source region of all of this possible smoke described above is likely a combination of smoke from the Russian fires, the large southwestern Alaskan fire, and the fires noted earlier this week over northern Saskatchewan Province. Much farther to the east, a large fire over eastern Quebec Province continues to produce a large area of moderately dense to locally dense smoke which has spread both westward and eastward, covering region of far eastern Quebec to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland Island. US (Texas to Great Lakes region and the Southeast/Gulf of Mexico): A large area of haze was noted extending all the way from Texas northward to the Great Lakes region. The large mass of haze also extended from Texas eastward across the Gulf of Mexico to Florida. Do not have much confidence that this large mass of haze contains any significant smoke although it is possible that some small contribution from the smoke spreading southeast from Canada has entered the northern US. Some small contribution from smoke is also possible with the haze across the Southeastern US/Gulf of Mexico from the fires (particularly the one over Broward County of southern Florida). Smoke from that particular fire this morning was moving off to the north and west toward Lake Okeechobee. JS