Saturday, June 19, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1700Z June 19, 2010

Central Canada/North Dakota:
A very large area of smoke was seen this morning covering most of
Alberta,    Saskatchewan and Manitoba as well as southeast Northwest
Territories and extending into western and southern Hudson Bay. Light
smoke had also dropped into much of North Dakota. Extensive cloud cover
over Saskatchewan and Manitoba is making the exact extent and density of
the smoke difficult to ascertain in this area. Much of the smoke is of
light density but there were patches of moderately dense and dense smoke
observed over southwest Alberta, which has gotten wrapped into a cyclonic
circulation, southwest Manitoba and extreme southeast Saskatchewan,
and along the Saskatchewan/Northwest Territories border.

Northeast US/Southeast Canada:
Remnant smoke, mainly from a large wildfire in south central Quebec,
extended eastward from the fire into the mouth of the St Lawrence and then
curved to the south, blanketing New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and clipping
the east and south portions of Maine and Cape Cod. Smoke was moderately
dense to dense near the fire and in patches downstream - along the coast
on the north shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence and also from the eastern
tip of Maine extending 800 km to the southeast into the Atlantic.

Central Plains:
An area of moderately dense remnant smoke was seen over western Kansas
along the Colorado border and extending to east-northeast into north
central Kansas where it thinned out. This smoke was drifting to the
east. A patch of light smoke was aligned from west to east from northeast
Wyoming into southern South Dakota.

Please see the graphics at the web addresses below for additional smoke
still attached to active fires in New Mexico and Arizona.

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.