DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0245 August 28, 2012
Northwest US: Large amounts of moderately dense to thick smoke continued to emanate from wildfires burning across portions of northern California, southern and northeastern Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, and northwestern Wyoming. The majority of the smoke generally spread to the north-northeast during the day. Northern and Central US/Great Lakes Region/Ohio Valley/Southwestern to South Central Canada: A huge mass of thin to moderately dense smoke primarily from the large fires burning the northwestern portion of the US extended to the northeast into southwestern and south central Canada and eastward across Montana to the Dakotas. The smoke then moved in a southerly direction over the Central and South Central US. Thin density smoke also believed to be mainly from the northwestern US fires was visible moving to the southeast across southern Ontario and the Great Lakes Region to the Ohio Valley. It is possible that some of this part of the smoke area may be due to fires burning in northwestern Canada. Northwestern to Central Canada: Several wildfires were burning over the southern part of the Northwest Territories, northeastern British Columbia, and northwestern Alberta. Localized moderately dense to thick smoke was visible moving to the northeast. A larger region of thin density smoke extended farther to the east and southeast across central Canada to just west of Hudson Bay. JS 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