DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1630Z July 21, 2014
Central and Eastern US/Canada: The tremendous number of wildfires continuing to burn in the Northwest Territories around Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes are generating a massive amount of smoke that covers much of the central and eastern US and Canada. Light smoke extends from central Northwest Territories through most of Alberta, Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba, southern Hudson Bay and most of Ontario, Quebec and Labrador and into the southern Labrador Sea. Moderate to dense smoke is seen over much of central Northwest Territories and dipping into northeast Alberta and northern Saskatchewan. In the US, the light smoke is over the Northern and Central Plains, the Entire Mississippi Valley, the Great Lakes and Ohio Valleys and then in a band along the Mason Dixon line into southern New England. A ribbon of moderately dense smoke was concentrated from far southern Ontario across northwest Ohio into southern Indiana/Illinois and into the Missouri Bootheel, northeast Arkansas and extreme northeast Texas before curling counter clockwise across central Louisiana into southwest Mississippi. The most dense part of the plume was from far western Tennessee and the Missouri Bootheel into northeast Arkansas. There was another small patch of moderately dense smoke that was tracking across eastern Lake Ontario into western New York. Washington/Southern British Columbia: An area of light to moderately dense smoke from the numerous fires in north central Washington was seen over most of the eastern two-thirds of Washington and a small portion of adjoining British Columbia. A separate area of light smoke was detected near the mouth of the Columbia River and extending to the west into the Pacific. This smoke is from a large fire blowup in eastern Siberia near Lake Baikal. Southwestern Alaska/Bering Sea/Gulf of Alaska: A large area of light to moderately dense remnant smoke is visible extending from the Bering sea south and east over southwestern Alaska to the Alaska range, the Cook Inlet, Kodiak Island and the Gulf of Alaska. This smoke originates from fires in eastern Siberia near Lake Baikal. 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