DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0015Z April 28, 2014
BLOWING DUST: Southern and Central Plains: A major dust storm was impacting the region throughout the day today. The dust has spread east and northeast out of loose and sandy soils of eastern New Mexico and West Texas from morning, whipped up by strong, gusty winds associated with a deep cyclone over western Kansas. By sunset the dust covered much of west Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas north and west of a line roughly from Ft Stockton to San Angelo to Ft Worth to Gainesville in Texas to Bartlesville in northeast Oklahoma to Emporia in Kansas to Beatrice in southeast Nebraska. Most of the dust in this area was moderate to dense. A separate plume of dust was originating from the dusty plains of northern Chihuahua just southwest of El Paso and moving to the east southeast. SMOKE: Western Gulf of Mexico into Missouri: A broad area of light to moderately dense smoke from the considerable seasonal burning in Mexico and Central America was seen streaming north from the Yucatan across the western Gulf and into eastern Texas/western Louisiana. Cloud cover makes detection further north difficult but some breaks in the clouds and the general flow around the strong cyclone noted above suggest the smoke has been drawn north at least as far as north central Missouri. Southeast Gulf of Mexico: The patch of light smoke noted in the previous discussion moving to the northwest off the west coast of Cuba has continued to drift to the northwest and has reached to about 27N87.5W, roughly west of Sarasota Florida. West Texas: A notable fire that has grown rapidly was generating a significant smoke plume of light to moderately dense smoke in west Texas, approximately 100km north of Del Rio. The plume was moving quickly to the east with the leading edge reaching to near Ft Hood by sunset. 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.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/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