Wednesday May 30, 2012

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1830Z May 30, 2012

Southeast US:
An area of remnant smoke covered the northeast Gulf of Mexico and
parts of Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida as it became entrained into
T.D. Beryl along the Southeast coast. This smoke was from fires along
the Mississippi River Valley and from the large fire in New Mexico.

Northeast US:
A patch of remnant smoke was present over parts of New York, Lake
Ontario, Vermont, and southeast Quebec. Clouds over the Northeast US may
be obscuring more smoke though. This smoke either originated from the
Baldy-Whitewater fire in NM or from fires in the Mississippi River Valley.

Southwest US/Southern Plains:
A large area of moderately dense to dense smoke was floating eastward
across eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle with thin smoke
spreading east across north Texas, western Oklahoma, and southwest
Kansas. Additional dense smoke was present near the source, the
Baldy-Whitewater fire, in southwest New Mexico. Two fires in southwest
Colorado had also produced smoke yesterday which still existed in a thin
layer over eastern Utah and Colorado.

Mexico:
Numerous fires in Mexico had produced thin remnant smoke over the
northwest part of the country that had drifted into Presidio and Brewster
counties in Texas.

Northwest and South Central Canada/Northern US Plains & Midwest:
Aerosol thought to be elevated dust particles was seen over much of
the Midwest and the Northern Plains states in the U.S. and spread
northward towards Canada where it merged with an extensive area
of remnant smoke. The smoke over Canada stretched from near the
Beaufort Sea over Northwest Territories southeast across the country
to Manitoba/western Ontario and is believed to be from a combination of
fires in Alberta/Saskatchewan and from smoke that had travelled across
the Pacific from Asia.

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.