DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1530Z SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

California/Oregon:
In Del Norte, Trinity and Siskiyou counties, fires are producing
moderately dense to dense smoke. These plumes are moving mainly to the
west across Del Norte, Trinity and Humboldt counties and extreme southwest
Oregon before moving offshore. The smoke is merging with smoke from
fires in Douglas county and along the Klamath/Jackson border in southwest
Oregon. The whole smoke area then extends about 325km into the Pacific.

In eastern Fresno County, moderately dense to locally dense smoke is
seen in the valleys around the fire near Cedar Grove in the Sierra
National Forest.  Residual light smoke from this fire from last night
has lifted north and was moving over the Lake Tahoe area this morning.

Another area of residual smoke was seen in an arc extending across
northern California into northwest Nevada as far east as Humboldt county.

Dakotas/Minnesota:
An area of unknown very thin aerosol was seen over North and South
Dakota and western Minnesota. This area was tracking to the east. It
is possible that this is an area of residual sulfur dioxide (SO2) from
volcanic eruptions in Alaska several weeks ago.

Ruminski/Sheffler

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.