DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z March 25, 2011
Currently: Southeast/Gulf Coast: The area of light residual smoke seen this morning continues to stretch east along a frontal boundary extending along the Gulf Coast from Texas/Louisiana border east through sections of southern Alabama/Georgia across the Panhandle/northern Florida and east NE into the Atlantic. Central/Southern Plains/Mississippi Valley/Southeast: Hundreds of fires are burning across the states of Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama. Numerous fires are producing light to moderately dense smoke. Just a few are emitting dense smoke. The largest cluster of these fires are located across Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Earlier Today: Southeast US/Gulf Coast: A long plume of thin smoke and possibly other aerosols extended along a frontal boundary this morning from eastern Texas along the Gulf Coast, across northern Florida, and out across the Atlantic Ocean. This smoke in this mix likely came from fires in the southeastern US and from the numerous fires in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas yesterday. The smoke/aerosols along most of this plume were moving southward into the Gulf of Mexico of southeast across Florida/Atlantic Ocean. But the smoke over northeast Texas was moving south/southwestward from yesterday's burning in OK/AR/MO/KS implying it is not as attached to the movement of the frontal boundary. Gulf of Mexico: Several areas of thin remnant smoke were present in this morning's GOES imagery across the entire Gulf of Mexico. Moderately dense smoke was seen trapped by the wind flow in the Gulf of Campeche. Since the general wind flow has been from the south over the past day, it is likely that this smoke originated in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico where there was a large amount of burning yesterday. Central Plains: A very thin aerosol of unknown composition could be seen along the western edge of the decaying stratus cloud deck over Kansas and Nebraska this morning. This aerosol stretched from central to northwest Kansas and reached into southwest Nebraska/extreme northeast Colorado. Some blowing dust was observed over this part of the Central Plains yesterday but surface winds have also been out of the southeast this morning meaning that thin remnant smoke from yesterday's fires in Kansas/Oklahoma could also potentially be part of the mixture of aerosols. -Kibler 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