Tuesday, October 28, 2008

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





 


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.