Tuesday, August 9, 2011

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1730Z August 9, 2011

Far Eastern US/Western Atlantic:
A large amount of aerosol of unknown origin and composition could
be seen along most of the eastern US seaboard spreading east across
the western Atlantic. Most of this aerosol is believed to be general
pollutants. However, the Lateral West fire in the Great Dismal Swamp
along the Virginia-North Carolina border was producing moderately dense
to dense smoke. Most of this smoke had moved east over the Atlantic but
a windshift this morning briefly allowed for smoke to flow northward
across the Delmarva Peninsula. A small patch of remnant smoke from fires
in southern Georgia yesterday could also be seen this morning along the
FL/GA border.

Central US/Great Lakes Region:
An area of aerosol believed to be thin remnant smoke stretched across
the Central Plains from South Dakota/Nebraska to southern Lake Michigan
with other patches of thin smoke over Lake Superior and Lake Huron into
southern Ontario. A strong upper low moving across western Ontario
appears to have pulled this remnant smoke either southeastward from
the northwest Canada wildfires or eastward across the Rockies from the
Pacific Northwest fires.

Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles/Western Kansas/Southeast Colorado:
Two small areas of thin remnant smoke were present over the panhandles
of OK/TX, western KS, and southeast CO. It is believed this smoke is
from the fires in NM/AZ and western CO yesterday.

Western and Northwestern Canada:
Several fires were analyzed over far northern Alberta and in the Northwest
Territories of northwestern Canada mainly to the east of Great Slave
Lake. Some of these fires could be seen producing smoke already this
morning and two fairly large areas of thin remnant smoke believed to
be from the above mentioned fires covered much of Alberta/Saskatchewan
and parts of Manitoba/Northwest Territories/western Nunavut. Moderately
dense smoke was present across northern Saskatchewan.

Sheffler


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

 


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.