DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1645Z May 09, 2007
Georgia, Florida, and Gulf of Mexico: Cloudiness from the subtropical storm off the southeast coast had spread inland across the eastern half of Georgia and northern Florida which limited satellite detection of smoke in those areas. Visible satellite imagery this morning did show significant smoke south of the clouds covering much of central and southern Florida. The smoke also stretched from the south central Gulf of Mexico, across the Straits of Florida, and over the Bahamas. The smoke has also become entrained into and can be seen in cloud free areas wrapping around the circulation of Subtropical Storm Andrea off the southeast coast. The smoke currently covering the southern portion of Florida, from Lake Okeechobee southward (as of the 1645Z image), appeared to be of the moderately dense to locally dense variety. Moderately dense to locally dense smoke also covered portions of the Florida Keys, the Strait of Florida, and the Bahamas. Slightly less dense smoke appeared farther to the west over the south central Gulf of Mexico. Elsewhere, surface observations from extreme southeastern Georgia as well as northern Florida (closer to the large active fires) still indicated greatly reduced visibilities due to smoke. As stated earlier, clouds from Subtropical Storm Andrea are interfering with smoke detection in this region. Minnesota/Wisconsin/Ontario/Quebec: A large fire in the Boundary Waters near Saganaga Lake in far NW Cook county continues to produce an area of moderately dense to locally dense smoke which has fanned out to the south and east during the morning. The smoke covers the southern portion of Ontario Province from Lake Nipigon eastward into the far southwestern portion of Quebec Province. Smoke also was spreading southward over northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Lake Superior and may shortly move into the northwestern part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Very early morning visible imagery also showed a hazy area, which may partly be remnant thin smoke primarily from this fire, across a large portion of Minnesota as well as Wisconsin. Southern California: A satellite hot spot was still visible early this morning with the on going fire near Glendale in south central Los Angeles County. A relatively small area of thin smoke was detected generally moving in a west-northwest direction into Ventura County. JS