Thursday, June 10, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0130Z June 11, 2010

UPDATED...

Alaska/Northwestern Canada:
Areas of dense smoke continue to be associated with wildfires in the
northern Yukon Territory and in eastern Alaska. This smoke is generally
drifting to the north, but also to the east. A broader area of light
to moderately dense smoke covered much of central, north central and
northeast Alaska and northern Yukon and a portion of the northwest
Northwest Territory. A fire in northwest Alaska in the Noatak National
Preserve had produced a moderately dense smoke plume that was drifting
to the north toward the Arctic Coast.

Central Canada:
An elongated area of light smoke with patches of embedded moderately dense
smoke stretched from near the southern shore of Great Bear Lake across
Great Slave Lake and eastern Lake Athabasca reaching to Reindeer Lake,
covering much of northern Saskatchewan. The smoke was from fires to the
southeast of Great Slave Lake in southern Northwest Territory and fires
to the west of Reindeer Lake in northeast Saskatchewan.

Eastern Canada:
A swath of thin smoke likely leftover from the Canadian and Alaskan
fires was visible early this morning in an arc extending from Labrador
Sea across much of central and western Labrador, far eastern Quebec into
the Gulf of St Lawrence and just clipping the western end of the Island
of Newfoundland before reaching into the Atlantic. A separate swath of
light smoke was seen extending southeast from central Nova Scotia into
the Atlantic. This smoke was likely remnant smoke from the active fires
in central Quebec east of James Bay.

Southeast US:
An area of aerosol was seen extending to the east off the coast of
Georgia and the Carolinas. The composition of this aerosol is not known
with certainty but it is likely a mix of remnant smoke from fires across
the Southeast and possibly Central America and pollution. Later this
evening some of this aerosol was seen over the western Gulf of Mexico,
off the coast of Florida, drifting west.

Evans/Ruminski


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.