DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0145Z June 25, 2009
Canada: A large smoke plume from yesterday's far W Quebec and NE Ontario fires continues to track ahead of frontal band of thunderstorms across C Quebec. This thin to moderately dense plume extends from Hamilton Inlet of Labrador westward across S Labrador reaches the corner in the Quebec/Labrador boarder then turns SW across C Quebec toward the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Trois-Rivieres. Numerous new and old fires continue to pump out copious amounts of smoke across nearly all of N Ontario, C Quebec and S Labrador...please see link below. Additionally, the smoke is mixed with SO2 which is described in further detail below within SO2 section Lower Mississippi and Red River Valleys: Remnant thin smoke from numerous agricultural fires from yesterday's fires in the MO Bootheel and across AR/LA can be seen across E Texas and S and Central Louisiana...the smoke is thin to moderate in consistency but is mixed with haze/high humidity as well. Today's smoke from similar fires in MO/AR is also moving SE and mixing with hazy conditions across the Mississippi River Valley across AR...and eventually merges with area over TX/LA. SO2: A large area of SO2 from the Sarychev Peak eruption can be seen in two lines that continue to stretch out E-W but also become thicker as the concentration increases along this convergence/stretching boundary. The most dense areas are around 50km wide from the Southern Yukon/NW Territories boundary east across to Great Slave Lake, then SEward across W Lake Athabasca into central Saskatchewan...Here the width of the line thins to about 20km before it balls up into a small shortwave vortex that is centered over Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipeg. Since the cyclone balls the SO2 up the string of SO2, then extends out of the northern portion of the cyclone across N Ontario toward James Bay. This string is mixed well with the smoke of 5-6 fires across NW Ontario... but the SO2 is much higher elevated (along tropopause or possibly even low stratospheric) than the smoke. Haze/Pollution: Today was a good day to detect moderately dense haze and pollution conditions across E MI/OH/W KY into the Lower Mississippi River area As well as in NC/SC/GA and S AL/W FL. In fact, some power plants/factories' plumes could be seen distinctly with slightly higher concentrations...and can be picked up well as the source point remained stationary though the rest of the thinner haze passed by. See N GA and SW KY for best examples. Also smog/haze from Chicago can be seen well only due to the fact that west winds blew the haze over the dark background of S Lake Michigan. Gallina More information on additional areas of smoke associated with these fires and others can be found at the locations listed below. 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