DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0132Z July 11, 2013
Smoke: Similar conditions continue with the large area of very dense smoke covering Northern Canada, Central Canada into the upper Mississippi River Valley and Western Great Lakes. Most dense areas cover all of Manitoba, parts of Western Ontario and into Minnesota... this is all moving south. Cloud cover masks the moderate to dense smoke that is moving west across the western NW Territories and Yukon territory into East-central AK. From Great Slave Lake eastward, the smoke is moving E to meld with dense smoke over N Manitoba and eventually out into S Hudson Bay and James Bay. Eastern Canada: Smoke cannot be seen due to cloud cover and Rapid Scan Operations of Goes-East, but moderate to dense smoke particularly from Fires in W Labrador and E Quebec was moving NNE covering all of Labrador and parts of the coastal zones of the Labrador Strait. Utah/Colorado: Smoke from last night's Carpenter 1 fire started to slow down and curl SSE across SW UT into SW CO due to the influence of the strong upper level ridge. This has lead to consolidation of the smoke into moderate to dense smoke. Elsewhere in the desert SW, smoke is obscured by clouds. Central US: A narrow ribbon of thin smoke can be seen pooling along an air-mass boundary from E CO to S IL, it is about 50 km affecting S KS and S MO as well. This smoke has multiple contributions: from Canadian fires as well as NV fires. Unknown aerosol (likely haze/pollution/ with light dust) Northern US Rockies: A low level area of unknown aerosol, though likely containing some dust/sand from the flats of WA, can be seen moving NE out of the Columbia River Valley of N OR, WA, N ID into the Rockies of ID and NW MT, and further across the high plains of Central MT and S Alberta, far SW Saskatchewan. Gallina Earlier today: Alaska/Canada/North US: A thin ribbon of light density remnant smoke stretching north to south is observed in central Alaska and the northern Gulf of Alaska. A very broad plume of detached moderate to very dense smoke extends from Yukon Territory southeast across Northwest Territory, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba and then into the north central US before it curves east over the Ohio River Valley and then into New England and out over the western Atlantic. This very expansive area of smoke originated from large smoke producing wildfires in nearly all Canadian Provinces, but mainly in the vicinity of Lake Athabasca and Quebec. Western US: A large area of light smoke is observed primarily in the inter-mountain west from wildfires in Nevada, but partially stretches over the central plains as far east as Nebraska and Missouri Ramirez 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