DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z March 23, 2011
Southeast Coast: The large area of light to moderate smoke mixed with other aerosols discussed in the text product earlier this morning can still be seen moving off the Southeast US coast. The source of this leftover smoke is from numerous fires over the past several days which have been occurring over the Southeastern US. South Central and Southeastern US: Once again during the day, many fires producing visible smoke in satellite imagery were detected over the South Central and Southeastern US. The most concentrated fires and smoke plumes were analyzed over eastern Alabama, much of Georgia, southern South Carolina, and northern Florida. By the end of the day, a number of the smoke plumes in this region had merged to form larger patches of smoke. Farther to the west, cloudiness significantly interfered with both fire and smoke detection in satellite imagery across a rather large area extending from eastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas to Tennessee and Alabama. New Mexico/Texas/Kansas/Oklahoma: Gusty winds were responsible for fanning several rapidly spreading fires particularly over western Oklahoma, southwestern Kansas, and southwestern Texas. Locally dense smoke closer to the fires particularly in western Oklahoma and southwestern Kansas spread rapidly to the east and northeast during the afternoon and fanned out to cover a large portion of northwestern Oklahoma and much of Kansas. In addition, blowing dust continued to be seen in satellite imagery. By late afternoon, a swath of thin to moderately dense blowing dust extended from western Texas near Midland northeastward across central Oklahoma to southeastern Kansas. Rather thin density blowing dust also was observed moving to the northeast from the White Sands region of south central New Mexico. Southern Texas/Northern Mexico: Several large fires just south of the border in northern Mexico were emitting dense smoke plumes which moved to the northeast and across the border into southwestern Texas near Del Rio. Western Gulf of Mexico: A band of aerosol was observed just off the coast of Texas extending southward to the Bay of Campeche. This aerosol may contain some smoke from the seasonal fires which have begin in Mexico and Central America. It also may be attributed to the oil wells in the Bay of Campeche. 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