DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z July 29, 2011
California/Nevada: The Lion wildfire in Tulare County, CA was producing moderately dense to dense smoke during the day which moved primarily in a northerly direction into central California. Some moderately dense smoke also extended into a portion of northern California as well as western Nevada. Thinner density smoke from this fire extended eastward across a swath of southern and central Utah and into western Colorado. Northwestern US/Southwestern Canada/Northern Plains: A very extensive mass of aerosol was seen entering southwestern Canada and the Northwestern US early this evening. The aerosol extended farther to the east across Montana to at least as far east as northern North Dakota and around Lake Winnipeg in southern Canada. This aerosol was believed to be smoke from ongoing wildfires in Siberia which tracked aloft all the way across the north Pacific and into the northwestern US and southwestern Canada. The smoke was only visible late in the day just prior to sunset with the low sun and favorable viewing angle in GOES-East visible imagery. Central US/Eastern US: A very large area of aerosol with unknown composition and origin was present stretching from the south central US eastward to off the Mid-Atlantic coast. This aerosol likely contains general pollutants which are trapped under the sprawling upper level high pressure system with only a small component of smoke. Canada: Fires continued to be active just to the east of Great Slave Lake with moderately dense to dense smoke spreading mainly in a northwesterly direction during the afternoon and early evening. Cloudiness in the region though did interfere with determining the extent of the smoke. Prior to today, winds were blowing the smoke from these fires in a southeasterly direction. Some of that leftover smoke was still seen today extending to the southeast across central Canada, then being wrapped northward over Hudson Bay by a storm system. Farther to the east, several fires were analyzed spread out across Quebec from just east of James Bay to far eastern Quebec. Some smoke was visible with these fires, however cloudiness interfered with determining more of the density information and extent of the smoke. JS/Myrga 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