DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0100Z October 28, 2013
SMOKE An area of light aerosol was dropping south off the Pacific Northwest coast this afternoon/evening. There was no obvious source but models suggest that the aerosol is likely smoke, possibly from fires that have been burning in central British Columbia the past few days. A large fire burning in central British Columbia north of Fort St James was generating a light to moderately dense smoke plume that was drifting to the southwest. Numerous fires on Vancouver Island were producing light to moderately dense smoke plumes that were moving to the south and off the coast. Several agricultural fires in the the northern portion of the central valley near Sacramento were producing small plumes of mostly light smoke that were drifting to the north. A larger fire was noted in west central San Benito county near Monterey which produced a light to moderately dense plume that moved to the east reaching to Fresno and the foothills by sunset. BLOWING DUST California: Much of the southern two thirds of the central valley had blowing dust observed due to strong and gusty westerly winds this afternoon/evening. The areas with the most dense dust were generally east of the San Francisco Bay area in the vicinity of Modesto and Stockton and on the southern end of the valley around the Bakersfield area. Another area of moderate to dense blowing dust was detected in northeast California near Susanville. The dust was being kicked up off of Honey Lake and moving to the east into northwest Nevada. Nevada: An area of moderate to dense blowing dust was being generated from northern Churchill county in northwest Nevada. The source area was just north of Fallon and the dust was moving to the east northeast into north central Nevada. Ruminski 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