DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0400Z June 21, 2013
SMOKE: Alaska/Yukon and Northwest Territory/Western and Central Canada: Wildfires burning in Alaska are producing a large area of moderately dense to dense smoke across sections of western/central Alaska. Earlier today, A small linear line of smoke from a wildfire on the Yukon/Alaska border is emitting smoke north into eastern Alaska with lighter smoke crossing the border into the Yukon Territory. An overall large area of light smoke stretches across much of central/eastern Alaska east into the territories and norther/central Alberta/Saskatchewan/Manitoba/NW Ontario. Fires in Manitoba emit large amounts of smoke throughout the day and smoke is moving ESE in direction. Clouds obscured many of the fires in Alaska, but a patch of moderate density remnant smoke was seen drifting northward across northern Alaska and the Chukchi Sea around 0300-0400Z. Central US/Northern and Central Mississippi Valley/Great Lakes: A large area of smoke from wildfires burning in northwest Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado stretches across a large section of the central US. A pocket of very dense smoke was visible over most of Kansas and into northern Oklahoma this morning. Throughout the day this pocket drifted eastward and elongated in a north-south direction to cover eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, western Missouri, northeast Oklahoma, and northwest Arkansas by sunset. Moderate to heavy smoke was located close to wildfires burning in, NW Mexico, New Mexico and Colorado. The smoke is moving ENE in direction. DUST: Texas/New Mexico: An area of blowing dust was noted in west Texas roughly moving to the north extending from near Big Spring to Plainview. The dust appeared to be locally moderately dense. A separate area of mostly light blowing dust was seen over northwest New Mexico moving to the northeast into south central Colorado. LP/J Kibler 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