DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1530Z July 1, 2006.
Western and Southwestern US: The fire in Washington County of southwestern Utah continues to burn producing a moderately dense batch of smoke which morning visible imagery shows across southern Utah and northern Arizona. Patches of cloudiness across Arizona, Utah, and Colorado are making it difficult to see how far the smoke from this fire may have spread. A small patch of smoke was observed moving eastward across central and eastern Wyoming. The source for this smoke cannot be determined. Canada/Northern US: Large fires in eastern British Columbia, northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, and northern Manitoba provinces in Canada are responsible for an extremely large area of smoke which not only covers a good portion of western and central Canada, but has also been transported by winds aloft down into eastern Montana, the Dakotas, and Minnesota. While satellite imagery shows the thickest smoke residing over east central Saskatchewan Province, the northern half of Manitoba Province, and western Hudson Bay, some reduction in visibility reportedly due to haze has been noted across MT, ND, and MN. Eastern and Southern US: Visible imagery shows a very large mass of haze across nearly the entire eastern third of the country as well as the south central region covering the middle and lower Mississippi Valley as well as the central and southern Plains. Recent trajectory information shows that it is likely that smoke primarily from the Canadian fires and possibly also to a lesser extent from the recent western US fires is contributing to the hazy appearance noted on satellite imagery across this entire region, though it is certainly difficult to determine a smoke concentration in these areas since the smoke has been around for such a long time mixing with other pollutants present in the region. JS