Thursday September 21, 2006

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z September 22, 2006

Southern California:
The enormous Ventura County fires continue to burn today with tremendous
amounts of smoke being produced. Earlier this afternoon the densest of
the smoke was being blown to the south and southeast along the coast and
across the Los Angeles metro area. Shifting winds early this evening were
beginning to push the very dense smoke just slightly farther inland over
interior southern California. However, even though the densest smoke
was farther inland, moderately dense to possibly locally dense smoke
was still affecting the large population centers of Los Angeles and
San Diego. Somewhat thinner smoke from this fire has been transported
a long distance southeastward across northern and central Baja as well
as northwestern Mexico and also into western and southwestern Arizona.

Northern California:
Moderately dense to locally dense smoke from the Trinity County fires
and to a lesser extent from the smaller fire in southwestern Siskiyou
County was observed moving in a southward direction late this afternoon
and early this evening. The significant fire in Sierra County continues
to burn and is responsible for a dense smoke plume which has spread to
the southeast and across the Lake Tahoe region.

Southeastern Oregon/Northern Nevada:
Strong northwesterly winds blowing across a dry lake bed in the desert
region southeastern Oregon were producing a relatively narrow swath of
blowing dust which traveled from near the Malheur-Harney County border
in southeastern Oregon to Elko County in northeastern Nevada.

Western Texas/Oklahoma/Southeastern Kansas:
Blowing dust was observed across a large area extending from close to
the Texas-New Mexico border across western Texas (including Lubbock)
to north central Texas (around Wichita Falls) then northeastward across
the Oklahoma City metro area to southeastern Kansas.

Southeastern and Middle Atlantic:
Numerous fires and a few smoke plumes were detected with fires
scattered across the Southeastern and Middle Atlantic regions from
Louisiana/Arkansas to Georgia to Virginia.  Most of these smoke plumes
were of the thin to locally moderately dense variety and lasted for
several hours during the afternoon.

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.