DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1800Z May 13, 2007
Mexico/Central America/Gulf of Mexico: Early morning visible imagery seemed to indicate that much of the smoke associated with the tremendous number of seasonal fires burning across southern and eastern Mexico as well as Central America has shifted more to the south and now covers more of the eastern Pacific, south of Mexico and Central America. Southern and Southeastern US/Gulf of Mexico/Bahamas: The extremely large intense fires burning across far southern Georgia and extreme northern Florida were still emitting massive quantities of smoke which was visible across a very large region. What appeared to be thin smoke, likely mixed with haze and other pollutants, covered much of the central and northern Gulf of Mexico. It also appeared to be inland over Louisiana, the eastern half of Texas, a portion of the Central and Southern Plains and at least over the southern half of the Gulf Coast states from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle. Over southern Georgia, much of Florida, and areas east of Florida including the northern Bahamas, the smoke became at least moderately dense with patches of dense smoke embedded within this region. The thickest smoke was spread across the southern portions of Georgia to the west of the fires and into northern Florida just east of Tallahassee. More fires over southern Florida in Collier County were producing at least moderately dense to perhaps locally dense smoke plumes which moved to the east adding to the smoke already in the region. Southern Canada/Upper Midwest/Great Lakes Region/Northeast: The first visible images of the day appeared to indicate a large area of very thin smoke over the southern portions of Ontario and Quebec Provinces in Canada, extending south and southeast across eastern Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and into northeastern Ohio, Pennsylvania, and western and central New York. The possible area of extremely thin smoke was only visible for a couple of hours just after sunrise with the favorable low sun angle. Closer to the fires in northeastern Minnesota (near the US-Canadian border in the Boundary Waters region of Cook County) and also in southwestern Ontario Province in Canada, southerly winds were pushing the dense smoke plumes in a northerly direction this morning. By early afternoon, new fires in Canada had popped up around 25 miles to the northwest of Lake Superior and also around 50 miles to the northeast of Sault Ste. Marie Michigan. JS