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