Monday, July 30, 2012

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

 


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.