DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0245Z May 12, 2011
Southeast US Coast/Atlantic/Eastern Gulf of Mexico: A large area of thin to moderately dense smoke covers much of Florida and offshore over the southwestern Atlantic and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The main source for this smoke is the fire in southeastern Georgia (Honey Prarie wildfire). Residual smoke from fires across Mexico and Central America is also likely contributing to the overall smoke across this region. Central Plains to Great Lakes Region/Ohio Valley: Remnant smoke from the wildfires in West Texas and New Mexico was visible through breaks in the clouds across the Great Lakes Region extending southward into the Ohio Valley. More smoke is likely present across the Central Plains but significant cloud cover prevented detection. Southwestern and South Central US/Gulf of Mexico: Significant dense smoke plumes continued to spread to the northeast from a number of large wildfires in western and southwestern Texas, southern New Mexico, southern Arizona, and northern Mexico. In addition, large fires in western Mexico also were emitting huge smoke plumes which moved to the northeast across much of northern Mexico toward Texas. Also, fires farther to the south in Mexico and Central America were responsible for thin to moderately dense smoke which spread northward across the western Gulf of Mexico at least as far as southern Texas and southern Louisiana. Blowing Dust/Sand...Eastern New Mexico/Western Texas/Southern Idaho: Thin density areas of blowing dust were also evident in satellite imagery moving to the east and northeast from sources in eastern New Mexico and western Texas between Lubbock and Midland. Another patch of blowing dust was visible moving to the east across south central and southeastern 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