Saturday, July 3, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z July 04, 2010

Alaska:
An area of mainly thin density smoke was observed this morning extending
across northern Alaska, the far northern Yukon Province in northwestern
Canada, and portions of the Arctic Ocean. This smoke was due in part
from fires burning over northwestern Alaska and also from fires quite
a distance away in northern Saskatchewan Province of west central Canada.

Central Canada:
Smoke primarily from fires over northern Saskatchewan Province in west
Central Canada stretched across a good portion of central Canada. Details
concerning the smoke density and overall coverage though could not be
determined due to widespread cloudiness over some of this region.

Central and Northern Plains States to southern Manitoba/Ontario/Quebec
Provinces:
A region of aerosol extended from the Central Plains northward to southern
Manitoba, southern Manitoba, and southwestern Quebec Province. This
aerosol may contain at least some remnant smoke mainly from large numbers
of agricultural fires analyzed over Kansas and Oklahoma during the past
several days.

Southeast states:
An thin area of aerosol trapped under an upper level ridge axis was
centered over the Tennessee Valley this evening. There is some possibility
that a little remnant smoke may still be present in this area from this
past week's wildfires over southeastern and central Canada though there
no longer is any evident direct connection in the atmospheric flow to
the fires in Canada. This area was not analyzed as smoke in any of the
graphical products listed below.

Southwest:
Light dust was moving northeast from the Mexican state of Sonora into
Arizona and extreme southwest New Mexico.  Dust from the Mongollon
Plateau of Arizona extended northeast into southwest Colorado.

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.