Tuesday, June 22, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0330Z June 23, 2010

Canada:
Huge fires burning across central Quebec Province experienced a major
flare up this afternoon resulting in a large mass of moderately dense to
dense smoke which spread generally to the east and northeast. Farther
to the west, more large fires concentrated primarily over northern and
central Saskatchewan province of western Canada produced another area of
moderately dense to dense smoke which moved mainly in a southeasterly
direction. Some of the leading edge of the thinner density smoke
appeared to enter northern Montana and northwestern North Dakota just
prior to sunset.

Southwest US into the Northern Plains and Midwest:
A moderately dense plume of smoke from the Schultz fire near Flagstaff
extended northeastward to the Four Corners. Residual light smoke from
fires over Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado that have been burning
for days stretched from Arizona northeastward into the central Rockies,
northern Plains and across the Upper Midwest.

Louisiana:
Thin to moderately dense smoke from a fire burning in southwestern
Louisiana moved to the northwest across western Louisiana and portions
of eastern Texas during the day.

Eastern Half of the US:
A very large area of aerosol covered much of the eastern half of the
country from the southern and central Plains to the Middle Atlantic region
and offshore. It is not known if any of this aerosol may be attributed to
leftover smoke from any of the fires burning during the past several days.

JS

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.