DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0100Z May 30, 2014
Currently: Northern Plains/Upper Mississippi Valley: Numerous fires across E North Dakota, South Dakota and W Minnesota are producing plumes of mostly light smoke moving north across the region. Western US: Smoke seen earlier today (mixed in with Asian Dust) has moved across most of the W US including the states of Washington, Oregon, N and C California, up through Nevada, Idaho and into Montana/S Canada. The low level smoke along the western US coastline shows up well in satellite imagery with higher level smoke farther east and now in S British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. J Kibler Earlier Today: Smoke: Canada: Thin smoke has become strung out across N Canada from smoke output (likely over the past 3-5days) from the Funny River Complex in the Kenai peninsula of Alaska. Cloudy conditions obscure smoke (even fire) detection across much of Alaska, while clearing over much of Canada allows for it to be tracked mainly going east with a large ridge over western and central NW Territories. Coverage is nearly total across Yukon Territory, bits of far N BC, NW NW Territories (Big Bear Lake), nearly all of continental Nunavut, a majority of Hudson Bay and some portions of far N Quebec. A small area of what is suspected as smoke (tied to Funny River) can be seen over James Bay, NE Ontario, Far W Quebec... then south across Huron and N Michigan. Though in the low levels it appears that it may be mostly thin/moderately dense fog likely due to cold water conditions from ice melt over Huron, Georgian Bay and central Lake Michigan as well as some pollutant aerosols and hazy conditions. Western US: Thin smoke from the Funny River fire (with some suspected contribution of dust from Asia) that moved south over the past few days across the eastern Gulf of Alaska and Canadian coastal zones. Lower level smoke appears to be sinking south and slightly west offshore of S California around 34N to 37N, while midlevel and jet-stream level can be seen across the southern San Joaquin Valley, across central NV, central ID into the far SW of MT. Aerosols: Midwest/Great Plains: A vast area of low level aerosols mixed with haze covers much of the central US, some is quite dense in appearance. Moderate density covers much of IA, N IL, N IN that is moving WNW and given this motion is likely for the mass piling and increase in density. Thinner density conditions are seen across central and eastern SD, NE which are stationary or slowly moving N as well as over central and eastern KS and OK into far N TX moving S on the western periphery of the upper low. A strip of moderate density that was not moving WNW, but instead affected by the low, moving SW can be seen across N MO particularly, NW MO, north of St. Louis connecting the larger WNW moving area above. 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.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