DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0100Z August 18, 2013
Labrador Strait/North Atlantic: Very thin smoke covers much of the Labrador Strait and south of Greenland across the North Atlantic... this is remnant smoke from prior week's Canadian fire output. This was smoke that mainly moved north from the sources across the Arctic Islands and down across Baffin and northern Quebec, though a narrow ribbon across Newfoundland is likely sourced from N Manitoba fires and ID/MT fires and moved across the northern US. (Please see Great Lakes section below). New England/Great Lakes/Missouri: A narrow strip of thin smoke from the prior week's output from the ID/MT fires had originally been moving east, but with a shearing out upper low/trof over the Eastern US... this deformation zone smoke has begun to move westward again crossing S ME,NH, VT, N NY, Lake Ontario, S MI and eventually across C IL and much of MO and N AR, where the smoke consolidates and becomes a bit more dense. Upper Great Plains/Front Range of Rockies/S Great Plains: One half of the large bulk of moderately dense smoke sourced from the N California, SW OR, ID, NW WY, and MT fires is being pulled SSE across E WY, E CO, W NEB, W KS and due south across the OK and TX panhandles into south central TX...due to the retrograding upper low over MO. There are pockets of very dense smoke embedded particularly over the OK and TX panhandles. Northern US Great Plains/Southern Canadian Prairies: The other half of the large bulk of moderately dense smoke sourced from the fires mentioned above has remained north of the highly amplified ridging across IA/WI/S MN...in fact some is actually being pulled over the ridge and back SW upon itself across SE ND/N MN. Still this area is much more dense to the point of very dense particularly across far E MT, much of ND, S Manitoba into SW Ontario, clipping far NW MN. With the smoke folding upon itself across SD/ND/MN this should remain very dense throughout the night into tomorrow morning....but additionally a large portion will cross Ontario. Canadian Territories: An area of moderately dense smoke from prior day's emissions from fires across N Saskatchewan/N Manitoba, NW Territories and Yukon Territory remains relatively locked into place with a weak cyclone in N Alberta pulling smoke back into Yukon Territory but deep SSWly flow across AK is blocking further westward progression...so the smoke covers Yukon, NW Territories and S continental Nunavut. It does appear the fires have significantly waned due to colder temps and wetter conditions... only additional smoke being added today appears to be across the portions of the NW Territories NW and W of Great Slave Lake. 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