Sunday, July 18, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1502Z July 18, 2010

Northeast US:
A large area of remnant smoke from fires in central Canada emitted
earlier this week continues to be thin to moderately dense and move due
east across the Gulf of Maine across the SE New England, Long Island,
covering all of  New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland into N VA.

Minnesota:
A small extension of Canadian smoke can be seen across the length of
western MN.  It is generally thin and moving SSE at this time, though
may begin to shift more SE to E later.

Central Canada:
Moderately dense smoke covers a very large portion of Central Canada
(N Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut and E NW Terr.) and the Hudson Bay
from fires in N Saskatchewan over the past week.  NOAA Polar and MODIS
imagery shows that the most dense smoke covers large portions of E NW
Terr. And continental SW Nunavut as well as a large streak across the
northern Hudson Bay.  A well defined low just NW of the Manitoba lakes
is pulling some very thin smoke around its western and southern periphery
across SE Saskatchewan.

Southeast:
General area of haze and unknown aerosols can be seen south and east of
the frontal boundary and extends from the NE Gulf (near Panama City)
across SE AL, N FL, GA and much of SC before it extends due east into
the Atlantic.

British Columbia:
A fire in central British Columbia produced smoke last night can be seen
in two areas.  The first and larger area is due east of the fire along the
Alberta/BC line near 120W before the boarder follows the Rockies... though
most of the smoke is in eastern BC, the moderately dense smoke is near
the boarder and extends into western Alberta.  The second area is thin
smoke that moved more SE and is over Kinbasket Lake toward Mt. Columbia.

Galling





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.