Tuesday, April 20, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0130Z April 21, 2010

Northeast US:
An area of residual smoke from fires burning across the central US/Canada
continues to move rapidly east and is currently just off the east coast.
Earlier in the evening it stretched across parts of southern Vermont/New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and parts of eastern New York.

Idaho/Montana/eastern Washington:
Numerous fires burning across NW Montana and N Idaho are producing very
light smoke moving west into parts of N Idaho and eastern Washington
State.


Earlier Today:

Northern Plains/Upper Mississippi Valley/Upper Great Lakes/Southern
Canada:
An area of light residual smoke from fires burning across North Dakota,
Minnesota, southern Manitoba/Saskatchewan continues to circulate around
this region.  The smoke is very difficult to see in current GOES imagery.
Fires are beginning to pop up in this region over the last few hours.

J Kibler

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.