DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z April 09, 2011
Eastern Gulf of Mexico: Patches of thin density remnant smoke likely from fires over Florida and/or Cuba during the past day was visible moving to the north-northwest just off the western coast of Florida. Western Gulf of Mexico/Texas/Louisiana: Aerosol which is likely composed of smoke from seasonal fires burning over Mexico and Central America was seen moving to the north across the western Gulf of Mexico into southeastern Texas and southern Louisiana. The smoke then spread northward over eastern Texas and northern Louisiana to at least as far north as southeastern Oklahoma and southern Arkansas. Northern Mexico/Texas: Fires over western and northwestern Mexico were emitting plumes of smoke during the day which moved mainly to the northeast. Some of the thin density leading edge of this smoke had blown all the way into extreme southwestern Texas just prior to sunset. Farther to the northeast, huge fires continued to burn in northern Mexico just south of the Texas border producing dense smoke which moved rapidly to the northeast crossing the border just north of Del Rio and continuing to the northeast reaching northeastern Texas just east of Dallas-Ft. Worth by late in the day. South Central US: In addition to all of the smoke from the various other sources described above, more dense smoke was observed moving to the northeast from a large fire in northwest Texas in King and Stonewall Counties. Thinner density smoke from this fire during the past 24 hours spread all the way to the northeast and east across portions of Oklahoma, Arkansas, southern Missouri, western Tennessee, and northern Mississippi and Alabama. A very large number of what are believed to be primarily seasonal fires over northern Oklahoma and central to eastern Kansas resulted in a large patch of thin to moderately dense smoke which moved to the north and northwest across Kansas. Cloudiness did interfere with additional details concerning this area of smoke. New Mexico: Streaks of blowing dust could be seen late in the day extending from sources in southwestern New Mexico as well as the White Sands region of south central New Mexico. The thin density blowing dust stretched all the way to northeastern New Mexico by sunset. 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