Monday, September 24, 2007

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0130Z September 25, 2007


Central and Eastern US/South Central Canada:
The areas of possible thin leftover smoke, described in the earlier
smoke text narrative, which were seen in visible imagery this morning,
were no longer visible in satellite imagery late this afternoon due to
significant cloudiness overspreading the region. These areas include
the one which stretched from northern Texas to southern Iowa as well as
the one extending from southwestern Iowa to southern Ontario Province in
Canada. Farther to the east, the very large swath of possible leftover
thin smoke was still visible late this afternoon and very early this
evening just before sunset stretching from off the South Carolina/Georgia
coast northwestward across the southern Appalachians. The area of smoke
then turned northward over the Ohio Valley and portions of the Great
Lakes region including Michigan and Lakes Erie and Huron before turning
northeastward over southeastern Ontario and southern Quebec provinces
in southeastern Canada. Also, as stated in the earlier smoke narrative,
this possible thin leftover smoke is likely from numerous fires burning
the past several days across the middle Mississippi Valley and the South
and Southeastern portions of the country as well as from some of the
larger western wildfires which were more active several days ago.

Washington/Oregon/Idaho:
Clusters of fires especially in southeastern and eastern Washington, and
the panhandle of northern Idaho were emitting thin to moderately dense
smoke plumes which generally moved off to the east and east-northeast
and also combined to form a larger batch of smoke. Unlike the enormous
long burning wildfires in portions of Washington and Idaho recently,
these fires are believed to be mainly seasonal burns, possible relating
to agriculture. Elsewhere in this region, a fire in Chelan County of
northwestern Washington was emitting a locally dense smoke plume which
spread eastward during the day. In central and south central Oregon,
locally dense smoke plumes were also observed from fires in Deschutes,
northwestern Klamath, and northern Harney Counties. The smoke plumes
were primarily moving off to the southeast from these fires.

California:
A fire just south of Sacramento near the Solano-Sacramento County border
region produced a thin to perhaps locally moderately dense smoke plume
which fanned out as it moved southward across the eastern portions of
the San Francisco-Oakland area.

Hawaii:
Vegetation burning from lava flows coming from the Kilauea Volcano was
responsible for a thin to moderately dense smoke plume which mixed with
the usual volcanic steam and moved off to the west along the southern
shore of the island of Hawaii.

Alaska:
Several rather large fires burning to the east and southeast of Umiat
in far north central Alaska were responsible for a large smoke plume
which moved initially to the north then to the northwest and west
across northern (including Barrow) and northwestern Alaska toward the
Arctic Ocean. The smoke was moderately dense to dense within 60 miles
of the fires.

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.