DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0315Z July 6, 2013
Alaska/Western Canada: Cloudiness over Alaska and far western Canada interfered with smoke detection so only a few patches of smoke were visible mainly over eastern Alaska and the Yukon of western Canada. Southwest US: A large area of primarily light remnant smoke from the fires in the Southwest over the past few days was visible circulating around an area of upper level high pressure over the Southwestern US. The smoke covered southern California, and a portion of Arizona, and extended to the northeast as far as the central high plains around western Nebraska. The smoke also stretched to the south over far western Mexico and over the eastern Pacific off the Mexico and southern California coast. Smoke coverage may also extend over a greater portion of the Southwest but cloudiness prevented detection in these areas. Thicker smoke was seen moving to the east and northeast from the Carpenter 1 fire in southern Nevada west of Las Vegas. This moderately dense to very thick smoke reached into southwestern Utah. Another plume of moderately dense to very thick smoke spread to the northeast over northern Nevada from a fire to the southeast of Lake Tahoe. Central US: An elongated area of very light, elevated remnant smoke mainly from the fires in Canada was seen stretching from the just north of the Great Lakes region into east Texas. Moderately dense smoke from the fires in northern Manitoba and the fires in Quebec was again moving to the south and had reached northern Minnesota just prior to sunset. Canada: Wildfires scattered from the southern part of the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta to northern Manitoba were emitting various amounts of smoke which moved in a southerly direction during the day. Over Quebec, huge fires continued to burn with the majority of the very dense plumes moving to the east. A very large west to east elongated mass of remnant thin to moderately dense smoke from all of the Canadian fires stretched from the southern part of the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta to off the coast of southeastern Canada. Within this large area, the thickest smoke was visible stretching from the fires in Quebec to off the southeastern Canada coast. JS 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