DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0245Z April 16, 2011
Gulf of Mexico: Thin to moderately dense smoke coming from agricultural fires over Mexico, Central America and also the large wild fires over Texas covered a large portion of the Gulf of Mexico and extended northeastward into portions of the Southeast. The northeastward extent of the smoke was difficult to discern due to widespread cloud cover this evening. Northeast Mexico/Texas: The large wildfires that continue to burn over portions of Texas and northern Mexico have produced a large and extremely dense smoke plume over a large portion of central Texas and northern Coahuila. Southwest Kansas/Oklahoma Panhandle/Texas: A large amount of blowing dust continued to be present this evening over extreme southwest Kansas, western portions of Oklahoma and over a large area of central and eastern Texas. The dust did become more difficult to detect over portions of central and eastern Texas as it combined with the large smoke plumes with the wildfires over Texas. Hanna 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