DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0130Z May 17 2013
Dust/Sand: Arizona: Thin dust and sand is being suspended from strong WSWly flow across the Painted Desert (Little Colorado arm of the Grand Canyon) and Echo Cliffs region of E Coconino county. This dust/sand is covering the northern half of Navajo into N Apache county. Smoke: Atlantic (off Mid-Atlantic coast): Remnant thin dense smoke from MN fires two days ago has progressed across the Great Lakes and PA yesterday and could be seen nearly all day just SW of Long Island and about 30km E of NJ moving ENE but also stretching out West to East along frontal zone...and consolidating as some pockets reached moderate density. SW Gulf of Mexico: A few N-S plumes of smoke from yesterday off the NW Cuba have remained intact even though the environment has shifted back to strong Easterlies Each of three plumes were about 20km wide though about100km long and seen between 83W and 86W. Western Gulf of Mexico/Texas/Louisiana: With well defined cyclone moving east across AR, strong southerly winds on the Low Level Jet have been open to bring thin to moderately dense smoke from the numerous agricultural fires across the Yucatan peninsula and northern Central America. Recently, under influence of midday heating, boundary layer flow across TX has begun to pull the smoke N and W as far west as Austin/San Antonio and to Dallas/Fort Worth and the Red River... still a large portion of smoke continues due north across E TX and S LA at this time as well west of 90W. New Mexico: Moderately dense smoke from last night's emissions of the Grand fire in Southern California can be seen as a narrow (approx 20-40km wide) ribbon across northern NM extending across McKinley, Sandoval, and Santa Fe county, as well as SW San Miguel, NW Torrance and Guadeloupe county. AZ/NM/N Mexico: Other pockets of very thin smoke can be seen throughout the desert Southwest of AZ, NM into TX that are likely associated with the Grand fire and other smaller fires in AZ and Northern Baja California fires over the last night. New smoke from these Baja California fire cover much of extreme SE CA at this time. Gallina 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