Thursday, May 28, 2009

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0145Z May 29, 2009

Northern Plains/Southern Canada:
Thin smoke from the past few days in the wheat belts of Dakotas and
southern prairies of Canada can be seen moving SE to E continuing to
deform/stretch along the trof from James Bay and NE Ontario across Lake
Superior into the UP of MI and covering nearly all of WI into E IA.
There is general hazy conditions that could be thinner/very faint smoke
extending as far as the TX/OK panhandle.
A large pocket of thin to moderate smoke from fires today in Manitoba
can be seen moving due south covering a large portion of the Red River
Valley in ND/MN.   On the other side of the cloudy conditions in ND,
today's smoke from the numerous fires in SE ND can also be seen moving
SSE covering a large portion of SW MN and E SD.

Missouri Valley:
A pocket of prior days' (2-4 days ago) can be seen over the far NW corner
of MO along the Missouri River from St. Joseph, MO, to Kansas City, MO
into a larger area of cloudiness moving toward Springfield and Rolla, MO.

S Texas:
Smoke from Mexican/Guatemalan fires was ingested into a large complex
of thunderstorms yesterday into this morning...some of that smoke had be
spit out northern side in the low levels within its outflow.  The boundary
is still visible in imagery and the smoke is generally pooled along it.
Return flow into S and SW Texas has pulled the smoke back into TX,
covering a large portion of the Rio Grande Valley and toward the Hill
country of SW TX toward San Antonio and Austin, TX.

Gallina


THE FORMAT OF THIS TEXT PRODUCT IS BEING MODIFIED. IT WILL NO LONGER
DESCRIBE THE VARIOUS PLUMES THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVE FIRES. THESE
PLUMES ARE DEPICTED IN VARIOUS GRAPHIC FORMATS ON OUR WEB SITE:

JPEG:   http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/hms.html
GIS:    http://www.firedetect.noaa.gov/viewer.htm
KML:    http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/kml.html

THIS TEXT PRODUCT WILL CONTINUE TO DESCRIBE SIGNIFICANT AREAS OF SMOKE
WHICH HAVE BECOME DETACHED FROM AND DRIFTED SOME DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE
SOURCE FIRE, TYPICALLY OVER THE COURSE OF ONE OR MORE DAYS. IT WILL ALSO
STILL INCLUDE DESCRIPTIONS OF BLOWING DUST.

ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THESE CHANGES OR THE SMOKE TEXT
PRODUCT IN GENERAL SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov













 


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.