DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0100Z OCTOBER 21, 2007
South Central and Southeastern US: Quite a few fires were scattered across the region stretching from the Central and Southern Plains to the Southeast. Only a dozen or so of these fires were emitting smoke plumes which were visible in satellite imagery. Most of the smoke plumes were generally of the small thin variety. A bit longer plumes were observed moving to the north-northeast from fires located in Phillips County of eastern Arkansas, Bradley County of south central Arkansas and Rusk County of eastern Texas. Northwestern Texas: Fires fanned by gusty southwesterly winds in southwestern Dallam County and eastern Ochiltree County in the northwestern Texas panhandle were emitting thin to moderately dense smoke plumes which moved rapidly off to the northeast. South Central Canada/North Dakota: Numerous fires were again detected in southeastern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba Provinces of south central Canada as well as northern North Dakota. Due to extensive cloudiness, only a few smoke plumes were visible in satellite imagery moving southeastward from fires in the above mentioned Canadian provinces. Arizona/New Mexico: Due to cloudiness overspreading the region, smoke was visible only briefly from several fires in northern and central Arizona as well as western New Mexico. The northeastward moving smoke plumes were noted between breaks in the clouds with fires in northern and southern Coconino County of northern and central Arizona, and central Catron County of west central New Mexico. California: Fires in eastern Glenn and southwestern Yuba County in north central California emitted short puffs of thin smoke which moved very rapidly to the south through the Sacramento Valley. Farther to the south, a region of blowing dust was observed in the late afternoon and evening over southern California. The dust was most visible spreading southward across Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties and offshore over Santa Barbara Channel and over some of the Channel Islands. Another swath of blowing dust was moving southward across the San Joaquin Valley to just west of Bakersfield. Southwestern Canada: Many fires were detected from central to southern British Columbia Province in southwestern Canada. However, no smoke could be detected from satellite imagery due to the presence of extensive cloudiness. Hawaii: An apparent mixture of smoke and volcanic steam was visible again moving to the west along the southern portion of the island of Hawaii as lava from the Kilauea Volcano burns vegetation. JS