DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0015Z February 25, 2011
Florida/Georgia: Numerous fires over Florida and Georgia were seen today, with mostly small, short lived smoke plumes that moved to the north. A larger smoke plume, with moderate to locally dense smoke, was associated with a fire in northern Florida southwest of Jacksonville. This plume lifted north and northeast and moved out into the Atlantic by sunset. Texas: Gusty winds in west and north Texas produced a blowing dust storm that originated near Midland and Big Spring this morning. By evening, blowing dust covered much of northern Texas from near Midland and Lubbock into the Panhandle and spreading east reaching to near the Dallas metroplex and Waco by sunset. Mixed in with the dust was smoke from several fires. Two of these fires were northwest and southwest of Stephenville with smoke reaching the Dallas area. The largest smoke plume was associated with a fire along the Mason/Gillespie county line near Grossville with the smoke moving east. The area of blowing dust over the Texas Panhandle was moving south. By sunset, an additional area of light blowing dust was kicked up over south Texas and moving south. Several fires in Mexico near Monterey was also generating smoke that became lofted and was moving to the east and reaching the Texas border. Western Gulf of Mexico: A broad area of light aerosol was seen over much of the western Gulf. At least some of this is smoke from oil platforms in the Bay of Campeche with remnant smoke from agricultural fires possibly mixed in as well. Ruminski 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. THE SMOKE TEXT PRODUCT IN GENERAL SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THESE CHANGES OR THE SMOKE TEXT PRODUCT IN GENERAL SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov