DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0115Z April 16, 2007
Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean/Mexico/Central America: A strong frontal system swept across southeastern Mexico and even the western portions of Central America today resulting in widespread cloudiness across the region. The frontal system also appeared to clear much of the region of the large mass of smoke which had been present for the past several days. Earlier in the day, some patches of mainly thin smoke were evident through breaks in the clouds over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico just southwest of the Florida Keys and also in the western Caribbean, east of the Yucatan Peninsula and southwest of Cuba. Given the rapidly approaching front it is unlikely that much (if any) of this smoke ever made it into southern Florida. Baja California/Arizona: Strong westerly and southwesterly winds around the base of a vigorous storm system located just south of Las Vegas, NV, were responsible for kicking up an area of blowing dust/sand originating from northern Baja and extending northeastward into southwestern and south central Arizona. The leading edge of the dust had reached approximately 30-40 miles to the south of Phoenix just prior to sunset. Kansas/Nebraska/Missouri/Iowa: Numerous fires were detected across eastern Kansas, southeastern Nebraska, northwestern Missouri, and Iowa during the day. The most concentrated area of fires was across the region from eastern Kansas extending northward into southeastern Nebraska. Only around 20 or so of these fires had smoke plumes associated with them that could be seen in visible satellite imagery. Most of the plumes consisted of thin smoke. The only exception was small areas of localized moderately dense smoke which were moving to the east from fires in Butler and Elk Counties of southeastern Kansas. JS