DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1615Z August 29, 2013
Smoke: SE Texas/S Louisiana/NW Gulf: Smoke from yesterday's agricultural fires across the Lower Mississippi River in NE LA, E AR, and W MS can be seen moving generally SE, across much of Coastal TX, SW Louisiana and into the Gulf between 92W-96W north of 25N. Due to a developing midlevel and low level dry cyclonic circulation, the smoke pattern is quite interesting making a well defined cyclonic curl across the NW Gulf...one to really search out visible imagery to watch in a loop. --of note: numerous fires today in the same area are producing numerous plumes that are thin to moderate in density also generally moving S and SW. Rim fire output --- Northern Great Plains/Southern Canadian Prairies: Moderately dense smoke from a few days ago out of the Rim fire in CA has tracked NE and covers much of MT, S Alberta, S Saskatchewan, W half of ND, much of SD and portions of Central MN and Southern Manitoba. A small pocket of cleaner air (likely washed out by cyclone and associated moderate to heavy rainfall) can be seen over E ND and N MN attm. The most dense area is in a 100-150km wide, N-S line that covers SE MT to E Saskatchewan near 53N...moving into Manitoba. Early morning and today's output from the RIM fire is dense near the fire and NE into NV but is a bit thinner over SW ID into the Sawtooth, Salmon River and Bitterroot Ranges. Dust/Sand: Oregon/N California/NW Nevada: Strong SW winds are kicking up dust/salt/sand from the Summer Lake, dry lake bed in Central Lake county. The plume is about 40km wide and extends NE about 240km into the SW Blue Mtn Range. Similar to above the dry lake bed of Goose Lake along the NW California line with Oregon was kicked up starting aroudn 2000z and extends NE about 115km and is about 25km wide Another plume originating from dry lake beds, this time in SE Modoc county, California, mainly from the Lower Alkali Lake (though some contribution from the Middle and upper one as well) started around 19z but has become too thin to see from the source around 23z... this produced a 72km long plume that is about 20-25km wide but extends from NW Nevada into SE Oregon near the Steens Mtn Range and Alvordo Desert. 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