DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0145Z March 2, 2011
Gulf of Mexico: The leftover detached areas of smoke in the western Gulf of Mexico and over the southern Florida and the southeastern Gulf of Mexico which were visible this morning were not easily detected during the afternoon due to cloudiness. Some of the smoke from fires over Cuba during the day moved to the northeast across the Florida Straits. Southeastern and South Central US: Many more fires producing visible smoke in satellite imagery were analyzed across the South Central and Southeastern US. The most significant smoke producing fires were clustered over southern and western Louisiana and southeastern Texas. Moderately dense to locally dense smoke could be seen emanating from several fires in these regions. Other significant areas of smoke were located over the Florida panhandle, southern Mississippi, southern Texas, and southeastern Oklahoma. Smoke plumes from many fires in all of the areas listed above merged into larger patches by late in the afternoon. 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. 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