DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0145Z July 19, 2006.
Minnesota/Wisconsin/Ontario: The wildfires throughout Lake and Cook counties are continuing to produce a large area of dense smoke that is now moving north into southern Ontario towards Lake Nipigon. Remnant smoke from this fire continues to cover a larger portion of southern Wisconsin. The smoke is just one of the contributors to the overall smoke coverage throughout the central and eastern US. Great Plains into the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys: Remnant smoke from the massive fire in the Southwest of the past few days is seen covering southern South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and northeast Oklahoma and extending east across southwest Iowa, Missouri and northern Arkansas and into the Ohio valley and northern Tennessee Valley. The smoke is mostly thin to moderately dense with the densest part of the plume now appearing to be over portions of the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys. The smoke mixes with a large area of haze that covers the southern states from east Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky and Tennessee. It is quite likely that some smoke is mixed in with this area but previous analysis felt that haze was the primary constituent over most of this region and the most recent analysis concurs with this assessment. The area over east Texas may be primarily smoke from a large fire in central Arkansas that produced a large amount of smoke yesterday afternoon and evening and continues to burn this evening. The fire is in Perry county and there is an area of moderately dense to dense smoke that covers portions of Perry and Garland counties. California, Arizona and the Great Basin: A large fire is burning in the Colorado River Valley near the border of Imperial and La Paz counties. A very dense smoke plume is seen with this fire extending north/northwest into portions of southern San Bernardino county. A large fire appears to have developed over Lassen county in northern California with a dense smoke plume fanning mostly to the east into southeast Lassen county. Any smoke from the fire over Douglas county in western Nevada has mostly been obscured by approaching weather system from the south. Idaho/Montana: A fire in northeast Valley county is producing a dense smoke plume that extends 150 miles northeast into the southeast Montana county of Jefferson. Several fires continue to burn along mainly the western half of Fort Peck Lake and are producing a moderately dense to at times locally dense smoke plumes that has fanned out nearly 150 miles to the southeast and covers the entire portion of southeast Montana. Great Lakes: The large fires in the arrowhead region of Minnesota in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Cook and Lake counties have produced a long plume of dense smoke that extends south from the fires across central Wisconsin and then curves to the east across southern Lake Michigan and southern Michigan and extends through southern and central New York into southern Vermont. Zhong