DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0215Z April 15, 2013
Southwestern and South Central US: A streak of thin to moderately dense blowing dust was visible moving to the southeast from a source in west central Nevada. An area of thin to moderately dense blowing dust was seen moving to the east from sources in south central California. More thin density blowing dust moved to the northeast from sources in far southern California and southwestern Arizona. Thin to moderately dense blowing dust moved from sources in north central Arizona to northeastern Arizona. Moderately dense blowing sand from White Sands in south central New Mexico moved to the east-northeast. Thin to moderately dense blowing dust originated from sources in northwestern Mexico (just south of the New Mexico border) and moved to the east-northeast. The sand from White Sands and the dust from northwestern Mexico thinned out and combined into a larger area which moved over western and northwestern Texas, north central Texas, as well as western to central Oklahoma. Gulf of Mexico...Little change from earlier this morning with smoke transport from Mexico/Central America (see paragraph below) JS Earlier this morning... Gulf of Mexico/Southern and Central Plains: A large area of thin to moderate density smoke could be seen in imagery extending northward from Central America and Mexico and covered much of the Gulf of Mexico. This smoke also stretched north across eastern Texas, northwest Louisiana, western Arkansas, east Oklahoma, southeast Kansas, and southwest Missouri. Numerous agricultural fires burning in Central America, Mexico, and Cuba are responsible for the bulk of this smoke with other fires in the south central US also possibly contributing. Sheffler THIS TEXT PRODUCT IS PRIMARILY INTENDED TO DESCRIBE SIGNIFICANT AREAS OF 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