DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0245Z July 2, 2007
Utah/Wyoming/Colorado/North Central US/South Central US/Northern Mexico: The very large fire just north of Neola in Duchesne County of northeastern Utah continues to emit large amounts of moderately dense and dense smoke which initially moves in an easterly direction across southern Wyoming and northern Colorado. The smoke then encounters rapidly changing winds (deformation zone) and begins to fan out to the north and to the south. Mainly thin smoke was visible across the Dakotas, Nebraska, and possibly portions of Iowa and Minnesota. Moderately dense smoke was visible across western South Dakota, western Nebraska, and eastern Colorado including the Denver area although it is not known what level in the atmosphere the smoke exists. To the south of there, a swath of moderately dense smoke became visible again just prior to sunset moving to the south across the Oklahoma and northern Texas panhandle region and into eastern New Mexico. Some of the thinner smoke extended as far south as northern Mexico. Patches of moderately dense to locally dense smoke were still being produced by the Sanpete County fire in central Utah as well as the Sublette County fire in west central Wyoming. The smoke was generally moving in a northeasterly or easterly direction, but cloudiness in the region hindered detection and characteristics of the smoke at times. Arizona/New Mexico: Fires in northern Greenlee County of east central Arizona as well as south central Catron County of west central New Mexico were producing plumes of moderately dense to locally dense smoke which moved in a southwesterly direction and consolidated into one larger batch in the process. The smoke overspread the Tuscon metro area and was nearing the southeastern portion of the Phoenix metro area just prior to sunset. California: A rather small but locally dense smoke plume was visible for several hours late this afternoon and early this evening moving to the east from a fire in central San Diego County of far southern California. A northward moving moderately dense to locally dense smoke plume was observed from a fire which was detected late this afternoon in western El Dorado County of central California. Alaska/Northwestern Canada to Southeastern Canada: Widespread cloudiness covered the southern half of Alaska which greatly hindered fire and smoke detection. In a relatively clear region of northeastern Alaska, a swath of thin to moderately dense smoke was visible which is likely due in part to a few fires in the eastern half of Alaska and especially from larger more significant smoke producing fires in the Northwest Territories in Canada. This smoke may have even been dense in spots earlier this morning. In northwestern Canada, a very large area of smoke of varying density covered the central and northern portions of the Northwest Territories and also extended farther to the northeast over the Beaufort Sea and possibly Banks and Victoria Islands although the viewing angle of GOES satellite imagery begins to distort the imagery this far to the north. The most significant smoke producing fires were located southeast of Great Bear Lake and especially east of Lake Athabasca. Some of those fires along with a huge fire over north central Saskatchewan Province were emitting extremely dense smoke plumes which were moving in a northerly or northeasterly direction. To the south and east, some of the smoke from the Alaskan and especially the Canadian fires was believed to have spread southeastward across Hudson Bay and over Ontario and Quebec Provinces, just south of Hudson Bay. JS