DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0045Z January 16, 2012
Western US: Strong southwesterly winds kicked up areas of moderately dense to locally dense blowing dust which originated from point sources in northeastern California and northwestern Nevada. The blowing dust extended from far northeastern California, across northwestern and north central Nevada to southeastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho during the late afternoon just prior to sunset. Elsewhere, scattered fires producing visible smoke in satellite imagery were present across the region stretching from Louisiana to the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. JS Earlier this Morning... The morning satellite imagery showed a haziness off the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida as well as a similar haziness seen over the eastern Gulf of Mexico. While NWS smoke forecasts do indicate smoke in these areas, it was not evident that the aerosol seen was definitively smoke, though it could be a mixture of smoke from yesterday's fires in the Southeast US and other aerosols. 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