DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0345Z September 23, 2012
Most of the US/Southwestern Canada: Large complexes of wildfires burning in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming continue to emit immense amounts of smoke today. The thickest of the smoke has been moving to the north and east and encompasses northern Oregon, central Washington, central and northern Idaho, western Montana, and northwestern Wyoming. Moderately dense to thick smoke had also moved into southern British Columbia. Farther to the east and southeast, thin to locally moderately dense smoke spread east of the Rockies and over much of the Great Plains, and the Mississippi Valley. The thin density smoke extended as far to the southeast as the Gulf Coast Region and the Southeastern US. South Central Canada/North Dakota: Numerous seasonal fires were scattered over the area including southeastern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba as well as North Dakota. A number of relatively small mainly thin density smoke plumes were observed with these fires. Western Canada: Moderately dense to locally thick smoke emanated during the day from a few fires burning over northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta in western Canada. A much larger mass of thin to moderately dense smoke partly from the western Canadian fires as well as from the wildfires in the Northwestern US was visible across a good portion of western Canada. 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