Thursday, September 30, 2010

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0330Z October 1, 2010


Northern California/North Central Nevada/Utah/Western Colorado:
A large area of thin density smoke was visible this afternoon and evening
extending from northern California across north central Nevada and over
much of Utah and far western Colorado. Embedded within this larger area
of thin smoke were areas of moderately dense to dense smoke covering a
good portion of Utah. The source for much of this smoke was believed to
be a large fire burning over eastern Beaver County of southwestern Utah.

Eastern Montana/Eastern Wyoming/Western Nebraska:
Patches of very thin density smoke were observed moving to the east
through the day across portions of eastern and southeastern Montana,
eastern Wyoming, and western Nebraska. The sources for these areas of
detached smoke were likely from numerous fires burning daily across the
northwestern US.

Middle and Lower Mississippi Valley/Louisiana/Southeastern Texas:
A tremendous number of what are believed to be mainly agricultural burns
over the Middle and Lower Mississippi Valley region were emitting many
individual smoke plumes which moved to the south and consolidated into
a larger mass of thin density smoke affecting southeastern Missouri,
northwestern and western Mississippi, eastern Arkansas, and northeastern
Louisiana. A mass of thin density remnant smoke from the previous day's
agricultural fires in the Mississippi Valley, seen earlier this morning
over Louisiana, moved southward and off the south Louisiana and southeast
Texas coast and over the Gulf of Mexico.

Numerous other smoke producing fires were detected across the south
central, central, and western US. For graphical information on these
smoke plumes, please refer to the web links below.

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.