Thursday, June 13, 2013

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1745Z June 13, 2013

Central/Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley/Southeastern US:
An extremely large area of remnant smoke is stretching from the western
Great Lakes through the central and southern Plains state, back into
Colorado and New Mexico and then stretches eastward through the lower
Mississippi Valley and off the southeast coast. This remnant smoke
has many sources. First, the large wildfires in southern and northern
New Mexico continue to burn and produce a lot of smoke. These fires
in particular have likely led to the area of medium density smoke that
can be seen stretching from northern New Mexico into the Texas/Oklahoma
Panhandles and then eastward along the Texas/Oklahoma border. The second
source are the fires that are burning through central/southern Colorado
that are also putting off a lot of smoke and leading to the majority of
the remnant area over the center of the country. Additionally, wildfires
burning through Canada are leading to smoke moving southward from the
Great Lakes region. Lastly, numerous agricultural burns throughout the
lower Mississippi Valley and southeastern US have likely led to the area
of remnant smoke which is moving off the coast in that region.

Central/Eastern Canada:
Numerous wildfires continue to burn through northern Manitoba and
central/eastern Quebec and have led to a very large area of remnant
smoke that spans from the eastern portions of the Northwest Territories
and Nunavut southeastward into Manitoba, Ontario and into central
Quebec. There is another area of analyzed smoke moving eastward toward
Labrador. Most of this smoke is light in density but there are a few
moderately dense patches across northern Manitoba/southern Nunavut and
through south/central Ontario moving towards the western Great Lakes.

Yukon:
An area of mostly light, remnant smoke can be seen moving westward across
Yukon and extreme northern British Columbia. This is from a few wildfires
that were burning last night and into this morning across portions of
southwestern Yukon.

-Belge

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

 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.