Monday, April 18, 2011

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

 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.