Thursday, May 20, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1630Z May 20, 2010

Northern US Plains/South Central Canada:
An area of thin smoke extended from South Dakota, Minnesota, and northern
Wisconsin northward into southeast Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba
before wrapping eastward across southwest Ontario. A good bit of this
smoke likely resulted from the numerous ag burns over the past few days
over the Northern Plains. However, more dense smoke that originated
from fires in Michigan on Tuesday was seen over eastern North Dakota,
western Minnesota, and near the western end of Lake Superior.

Southeast Canada/Northeast US:
An swath of aerosols believed to be thin remnant smoke stretched from
just north of Lake Ontario to just north of Maine in southeastern
Quebec. This smoke may have originated from the fires in the Northern
US Plains/southern part of Canada several days ago, and was analyzed
over central Quebec yesterday.

Southeast US:
A small band of aerosols stretching along a frontal boundary over north
Florida this morning is though to be remnant smoke from regional ag
fires yesterday. This band extends from Jacksonville, FL west along the
Florida panhandle. Another small area of thin smoke was present over
western Alabama.

Western Gulf of Mexico:
An area of aerosols of unknown origin and composition was seen in the
western Gulf of Mexico along the southern Texas coast.

Alaska:
A small patch of thin smoke from the large fire in central Alaska was seen
drifting northwest of its origin. Also present was an unknown aerosol
over northeast Alaska, which was also present yesterday and could not
be identified, but was moving slowly westward.

-Sheffler

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.