DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z May 17, 2011
Alberta/Saskatchewan/Northwest Territory/Eastern British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario: Wildfires continue to burn over portions of central to northeast Alberta and western Saskatchewan. Large plumes of moderately dense to very dense smoke were seen moving north across northern and central Alberta and into sections of southern Northwest Territory. Light to moderate smoke has also spread across the border into eastern British Columbia. Moderately dense to dense residual smoke from these wildfires has also pushed to the south and east across portions of western Ontario and the Hudson Bay region as well as over portions of eastern Manitoba. This residual smoke is circulating in a clockwise direction under high pressure. Some cloudiness in this region of central Canada is preventing additional information on this area of smoke. Central and Northern Plains/South Central Canada: Numerous smaller fires were analyzed during the day across a large region extending from the Central Plains to south central Canada. These fires were generally emitting small bursts of thin to moderately dense smoke which quickly moved away from the sources. Southwestern and South Central US/Gulf of Mexico/Florida: Several wildfires are still burning across southeastern Arizona, and southwestern New Mexico as well as extreme northern Mexico just south of the southwestern New Mexico border. Moderately dense to dense smoke plumes were observed with these fires moving off to the northeast. Farther to the south and west, a large mass of moderately dense to dense smoke from fires across west central Mexico was visible moving to the east across central Mexico in the general direction of southern Texas. Late this afternoon, visible satellite imagery also showed a very large area of primarily thin density smoke covering northeastern Mexico, western and southern Texas, the central and southern Gulf of Mexico, the southern half of Florida, and the southwestern Atlantic including the Bahamas. This large mass of smoke was likely due to the ongoing aformentioned fires across southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and across northern and west central Mexico as well as additional seasonal fire activity farther to the south in Mexico and Central America. 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