DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z June 17, 2011
Arizona/Colorado/West Texas/Kansas/Oklahoma/Northern Mexico: Several large wildfires (e.g. Wallow, Horseshoe 2) continue to emit moderately dense to dense smoke that extends across central New Mexico and into western Texas, western Oklahoma, western Kansas and southeastern Colorado. This large area of remnant smoke is generally moving to the east. The wildfires in northern Mexico also continue to burn and spread smoke over northern Mexico and portions of south and west Texas. Pacific Northwest/Montana/Alberta/Saskatchewan: Patches of thin smoke, likely remnant smoke from the Alberta wildfires, was seen dropping south across central Washington and Oregon. Another very thin ribbon of smoke was tracking across southern Idaho. A somewhat more extensive batch of likely smoke was wrapping northward from north central Montana into western Saskatchewan along the Alberta border and then curled back to the west over central Alberta. This smoke is circulating around a large cyclonic storm system over southwest Canada. Extensive clouds with this storm system are hindering smoke detection. Ontario/Quebec: A large fire northwest of Lake Nipigon in western Ontario was producing an area of dense smoke that was drifting to the west. Remnant smoke from this fire had also spread to the east across much of north central and northeast Ontario and into far western Quebec. Very light remnant smoke was over eastern Hudson Bay along the Quebec shoreline rotating around a storm system. British Columbia/Northwest Territories/Nunavut: Remnant smoke from the extensive wildfires of the past several days around Lake Athabasca was seen in a large, broad arc covering much of central British Columbia, southern Northwest Territories and southern Nunavut into western Hudson Bay. Much of the smoke was light but there were patches of moderately dense smoke over British Columbia and between Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes. Extensive cloud cover over the fires precluded detection in this area today. Southeast US/Florida/Georgia: A broad area of moderately dense smoke continues to be present over the northeast Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic Ocean. An area of very dense smoke was being generated from the Honey Prairie fire and others in and around the Okefenokee swamp southeast Georgia and moving to the east southeast into the western Atlantic. Numerous other fires over northeast and southern Florida were generating moderately dense to locally dense smoke that was circulating around the entire state and surrounding waters. Southwest Arizona: An area of thin smoke was drifting to the northeast across southwest Arizona from agricultural fires in northern Mexico south of the Salton Sea. Blowing Dust in the desert Southwest: Areas of blowing dust contributed to the aerosol mix over the Southwest this evening. Gusty winds kicked up the dust over northeast Arizona and northwest New Mexico and carried the dust to the northeast into southwest Colorado. Another small, localized area of blowing dust was seen over southwest Nevada moving to the south. Ruminski THIS TEXT PRODUCT IS PRIMARILY INTENDED TO DESCRIBE SIGNIFICANT AREAS SMOKE ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVE FIRES AND SMOKE WHICH HAS BECOME DETACHED FROM THE FIRES AND DRIFTED SOME DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE SOURCE FIRE..TYPICALLY OVER THE COURSE OF ONE OR MORE DAYS. AREAS OF BLOWING DUST ARE ALSO DESCRIBED. USERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO VIEW A GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF THESE AND OTHER PLUMES WHICH ARE LESS EXTENSIVE AND STILL ATTACHED TO THE SOURCE FIRE 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 ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THIS PRODUCT SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov