DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1500Z July 30, 2012
Canada/Great Lakes: Numerous large fires across the NW Territories, N Alberta, N Saskatchewan, the Northern lake region of Manitoba and the NW wilderness of Ontario have produced and continue to emit smoke that covers nearly all of Canada. Pockets of Moderate to dense smoke cover Yukon territory near Great Bear Lake moving west in the low levels but upper level smoke is moving SSE toward the active fires in Alberta... where flow begins to flatten a bit covering all of Saskatchewan, S Manitoba into ND and MN in the US. Cloud cover across Ontario obscures detection attm but pockets of clear skies are milky in appearance and breaks over Quebec, Labrador and the Labrador Strait... indicate the line is unbroken across Canada. Further south though smoke covers all of MN, MI, WI and the Great Lakes. Moderate smoke associated with high output on Saturday across Manitoba/Ontario is currently seen over the Labrador Strait reaching S Greenland. Northwest US: The Lava fire in Central Oregon produced smoke last night that currently is moving NNE covering E WA, the stovepipe of ID, far NW MT and portions of SE BC and SW Alberta. The density is thin to moderate. Northern US Great Plains: Dense smoke can be seen across the boarder of MT/ND from output of the Rapid Creek fire in W MT. Thin to moderately dense smoke surrounds the area and covers the northern third of MT, all of ND, northern SD, with an arm of high level moderate smoke extending across ND into far NW MN. Smoke is at the top of the ridge and moving E across MT but starting to dip SE across the Dakotas. Wyoming: Thin to moderately dense smoke from the Dallas Canyon fire SW of Great Salt Lake is moving NE covering the Lake into central Wyoming. A moderate pocket can be seen just SW of the Big Horn Range... clouds across S WY may be obscuring more smoke there. Red River area: A narrow filament of thin smoke possibly from Saturday output of the Townly Road/Bakers Peak fires of OK, or from the Potato Cave fire in S MO, or even possible that it is smoke from UT, ID from up to a week ago. The line is about 100km long extending NE from around Ardmore, OK along the Red River. The line is no more than 20km wide though. It is drifting W very slowly as it appears to be very close to the center of the upper ridge, hence the difficulty in determining the origin. Dust: A swath of Saharan dust can be seen in the low levels extending SW-NE across the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, crossing FL between I-4 to I-75 (Alligator Alley section), and eventually being pulled into a convective cluster along the Gulf Stream near 32N and 76W. Gallina 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