Wednesday, August 04, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0315Z August 05, 2010

Alaska/Yukon/Northwest Territories/British
Columbia/Alberta/Saskatchewan/southern Manitoba/southern
Ontario/western/Quebec/northern tier of United States from
Washington/Oregon to the Great Lakes region:

An expansive area of smoke was analyzed this evening from central and
northern Alaska and extending south/southeast through the Yukon and
western Northwest Territories and through all of British Columbia and
most of Alberta before extending through the southern half Saskatchewan,
Manitoba, Ontario and into western Quebec.  The plume also extended along
the northern tier of the United States from Oregon and Washington east
to the Great Lakes region.  The plume was moderate to extremely dense
in areas.  Their appeared to be four primary source areas for the plume,
those being, a large number of wildfires over the southern portions of
British Columbia, numerous wildfires over northern British Columbia and
the southern Yukon, scattered wildfire activity over Alaska and finally
wildfire activity over central Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Central California:
A moderately dense area of smoke was analyzed this evening over portions
of central and northern California and it is believed the source for
this area of smoke is the continued scattered wildfire activity over
central and northern portions of the state.

Northern Manitoba/Nunavut:
An area of thin aerosol that is believed to be smoke was analyzed over
Nunavut and extending into northern portions of Manitoba. It's possible
that this area may be associated with the ongoing fire activity over
Russia.

Hanna


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.