Thursday, August 8, 2013

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0400Z August 9, 2013

Lower Mississippi River Valley:
An area of mostly thin smoke was seen from northern Louisiana/Arkansas
northeast across northwest Mississippi, western Tennessee, western
Kentucky, southeast Missouri, and southern Illinois. This is smoke
from several agricultural fires in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas
yesterday and today.

Western US:
Numerous wildfires burning in the western US produced thin to moderately
dense smoke that spread eastward across Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming,
and Colorado this evening, mixing with smoke from Canadian wildfires.

Alaska/Canada/North Central US/Great Lakes Region:
Extensive amounts of smoke from wildfires in Alaska and
northwestern Canada covered a very large portion of North America
this evening. Moderately dense to very dense smoke was present over
northeast Alaska, parts of the Arctic Ocean, the Yukon and Northwest
Territories, Nunavut, northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, and
northern Manitoba. Thin smoke stretched from Alaska eastward to the
Labrador Sea and southeastward to the Dakotas/Minnesota/Wisconsin as
well as southern James Bay in Canada. The smoke mixed with other smoke
from over the northern US that was coming from western US fires.

Dust:
Gulf of Mexico/Texas/Louisiana/Oklahoma/Arkansas:
A large area of elevated Saharan dust that continued to slowly move
westward across the western half of the Gulf of Mexico and could also
be seen over central and eastern Texas, southeast Oklahoma, Arkansas,
and western Louisiana.

Southwestern US:
Gusty winds caused blowing dust across western Arizona, southern Nevada,
and southeast California this evening. Some ofthe blowing dust mixed
with smoke from two wildfires burning in southern California. The dust
was observed from 22Z-0230Z (sunset).

Sheffler


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.