Friday, Aug 7, 2009

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1745Z August 07, 2009

Alaska/Canada:
A large and very dense smoke plume continues to be analyzed over Alaska
and a large portion of Canada.  The smoke continues to originate from
a large number of wildfires that continue to be analyzed over sections
of Alaska and the Yukon.  This morning the plume extended from eastern
portions of Alaska and then to the southeast through northern portions
of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and then covered a good portion of
Hudson Bay.  An extension of this plume, although with much lower smoke
density, was seen over southern Ontario and Quebec and was approaching
the eastern Great Lakes region.

British Columbia/Washington:
A significant number of wildfires continue over a good portion of British
Columbia and this continues to produce a rather large smoke plume over
most of British Columbia and was seen dropping southwest and covered
sections of Washington before being obscured by mid and high cloud cover.

Hanna

More information on the areas of smoke described above as well as 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.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/land/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.