Wednesday, May 11, 2011

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

 


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.