DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z April 19, 2011
South Central US/Southeast/Middle Atlantic Region/Southwestern Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico: Once again a very large mass of aerosol, composed of what is believed to be mainly smoke, covered a huge region including nearly all of the Gulf of Mexico, the South Central and Southeastern US, portions of the Middle Atlantic region, and even offshore over the southwestern Atlantic. The smoke over the western Gulf of Mexico and the western and central Gulf Coast was believed to be primarily from the seasonal fires burning in Mexico and Central America. Farther to the north from interior Texas across the interior Southeast and Middle Atlantic region, the smoke was likely more from the wildfires burning across northern Mexico near the Texas border and wildfires scattered across Texas. Seasonal fires in northeastern Oklahoma and eastern Kansas also contributed to some of this smoke although widespread cloudiness from the Central Plains to the Middle Atlantic region significantly hindered smoke detection in satellite imagery. During the day, more moderately dense to locally dense smoke continued to move northeastward from the large fires in northern Mexico just south of the Texas border as well as several other ongoing wildfires in the area stretching from southwestern Texas to north central Texas. Please refer to the web links listed below for more graphical information on the smoke produced by these fires. New Mexico/Western Texas: Gusty southwesterly winds kicked up areas of blowing dust this afternoon from sources in western Texas in the general vicinity of Midland. These streaks of moderately dense blowing dust moved as far as the TX-OK border between Childress and Wichita Falls by the end of the day. More moderately dense blowing dust originated from the White Sands region of south central New Mexico and moved across the NM-TX border by late in the day. Another streak of blowing dust originated from sources in northern Mexico just south of southwestern New Mexico and moved to the east crossing the west Texas border just south of El Paso. Arizona: Even more blowing dust was visible in northwestern Mexico from spots just southwest of the AZ border which moved close to the AZ border by sunset. Idaho: A narrow streak of blowing dust from a source point in southeastern Idaho moved to the northeast toward the northeastern Idaho-northwestern Wyoming border near sunset. Oregon/Idaho: A band of what is believed to be dust originating from Asia became visible late in the day across southern Oregon and southern Idaho. 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