DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0115Z OCTOBER 29, 2008
Eastern Texas through the Lower Mississippi River Valley: A large number of fires were detected on satellite imagery this afternoon and evening from eastern Texas through Arkansas/Louisiana and into Mississippi and Alabama. Numerous fires in this area were exhibiting smoke plumes on satellite imagery that were mostly moving southward. The vast majority of the smoke plumes were thin to moderate in density. The one exception would be with the moderate to extremely dense smoke plume that emanated from the multitude of fires over Chambers and Jefferson counties in extreme southeast Texas. The combined smoke plume was seen drifting mostly off to the southwest and over the extreme northwest Gulf of Mexico. Utah/Colorado/Wyoming: Scattered fire activity was detected over the region this evening. Some of the more noteworthy smokes plumes were the following: 1) Two fires were located over the southern half of Teton county in western Wyoming. The fire just northeast of Jackson was exhibiting a moderately dense smoke plume that was seen drifting east into the western portions of Fremont county. Another fire northwest of Jackson had a much better defined smoke plume and was moderate to extremely dense in nature. That smoke plume was lifting northeast into central portions of Teton county. 2) A fire over northwest Natrona county in Wyoming featured a moderately dense smoke plume that was seen drifting southeast towards Casper around sunset. 3) A fire over southern Wasatch county in northern Utah had a narrow but dense smoke plume that was drifting east-southeast towards northern Carbon county. 4) A fire over southwest Moffat county had a small but dense smoke plume that was drifting southwest towards Rio Blanco county. California/Nevada: Scattered fire activity over the northern two-thirds of California was producing scattered thin to moderately dense smoke plumes. The most noteworthy smoke plume was associated with the concentrated fire activity over northern Tuolumne county. The plume was moderate to locally extremely dense in nature and was seen rapidly lifting off to the northeast just south of South Lake Tahoe and into Douglas and Lyon counties in Nevada. Southern Saskatchewan/Southern Manitoba: An incredible number of what are believed to be agricultural fires were located over the region this evening but encroaching high cloud cover helped to prevent a detailed analysis of smoke plumes. Hanna