DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1445Z July 22, 2013
Labrador and Labrador Strait: Thin to dense smoke covers nearly all of the Labrador Strait from about 100km SW of Baffin Island to SE tip of Labrador along the eastern side of a large synoptic cyclone centered over Ungava Bay. The source of this smoke is dense emissions from the large fire complexes of northern Manitoba and NE Saskatchewan last week. The most dense area is concentrated along the nose and axis of strong westerly jet along the southern side of the cyclone mainly along an axis from Labrador City through Lake Melville toward the southern tip of Greenland. Thin smoke can be seen NE of Newfoundland as well racing eastward behind the cloud line. Hudson Bay: A very narrow (less than 40km wide) ribbon of moderately dense but highly elevated smoke can be seen on the outer edge of the large cyclone from the NE tip of continental Nunavut across the central Hudson Bay then across the Northern portions of the Eastern Bay Islands of Split, Johnson, Wiegand, and Tukarak. Into NW Quebec...likely connecting to the dense axis described above over Labrador City... but too cloudy to differentiate over N Quebec directly. Saskatchewan/Manitoba: Dense smoke from the NE Saskatchewan and N Manitoba fires covers a very large portion of those locations to Reindeer Lake then much of central Saskatchewan to around Prince Albert. Southern BC and SW Alberta: A thin area of smoke likely from AK/Yukon Territory fires last week has rotated back ashore and is banked up along the eastern Alberta Rockies from Banff south, then crosses into far NW MT. A drape of thin smoke lingers across between 49-51N particularly in the valleys of SE BC as well. Upper Great Plains/Northern US Rockies: Thin smoke from MT and and ID fires continues to be pulled E then SE across the Great Plains with numerous isolated pockets of moderately dense smoke and one area of dense smoke from the Gold Pan Fire last night. This dense area can be seen covering NE WY, and W SD rapidly moving E. Thin smoke covers all of MT, WY, SW ND, SD, NE and then is pulled NE across MN by rapidly moving shortwave trof. Central US Rockies/Kansas: Thin smoke from a fire along in White Pine county, NV just east of the NV/UT boarder can be seen covering the middle third of the state of UT moving E and melding with thin smoke from the Citadel and East Tschuddi fires in NW CO... covering the rest of CO and nearly all of KS as well in thin smoke. S Idaho/NW Wyoming: Smoke from last night's Ridge Fire output and near Twin Falls can be seen moving E covering the Upper Snake River Valley into lower elevations/valleys around Yellowstone NP and across the Teton Range into the Wind River Range in NW/W WY. Oregon: Moderately dense smoke can be seen in a 200km wide SW-NE axis from the Blue Mtns across the Central Cascades (near Mt. Bachelor/Three Sisters) to around Coos Bay, OR. This smoke is slowly drifting SSE and though it has contributions from last night's fire N of Madras, the main contribution is likely the Yukon/AK fires from last week as well as some from the Mountain fire in S California last week as well. 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