DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1830Z May 7, 2013
Gulf of Mexico: A large area of thin to moderately dense smoke from Central American, Mexican, and Cuban agricultural burning covered the western/central Gulf of Mexico, western Caribbean, and Central America this morning. Clouds covered some of the area believed to contain smoke in the Bay of Campeche. East Coast: The large cyclonic gyre over the eastern US continued to draw an unknown aerosol, possibly old Mexican smoke, northward across the Bahamas and over the coastline near the Mid-Atlantic region. South-North Central US/Great Lakes/South Central and Southeast Canada: A mixture of aerosols could be seen across the Central US/Southern Canada. Thin remnant smoke was seen over northeast Texas/southeast Oklahoma/northwest Louisiana from numerous fires that were burning in this area yesterday. This smoke mixed with an unknown aerosol that extended north across the Central Plains/Midwest where it mixed with another area of thin to moderate density smoke from Iowa/Nebraska northward into southern Manitoba/southeast Saskatchewan. In addition the optically thinner unknown aerosol covered south central/southeastern parts of Canada including covering Lake Superior. This unknown aerosol, especially over southern Canada, could potentially be dust/pollution from Asia or from other sources. Northwest US/Southwest Canada: An aerosol seen from northern Idaho/northwest Montana stretching northeastward to central Saskatchewan was believed to be thin remnant smoke from numerous regional fires yesterday. Several plumes of blowing dust were seen this morning over southeast Alberta/northwest Montana as well. Two areas of additional aerosol were present over British Columbia. A small patch of thin smoke was seen over southern British Columbia from a group of fires in that area yesterday. Further north across the province, elevated dust particles could be seen moving inland over central/north B.C. and north/central Alberta. 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