Wednesday, July 23, 2014

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0215Z July 24, 2014

SMOKE:
Canadian:
The tremendous area burning in the Northwest Territories around
Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes continues to generate smoke that is
covering a large portion of the US and Canada. This evening, the smoke
covered most of Northwest Territories and Nunavut and then curled to the
southeast across northeast Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba and northern
Ontario. Most of this smoke was moderate to very dense. Lighter remnant
smoke was also observed in a separate patch from the Mid Atlantic and
New England states across the Canadian maritimes into the Labrador Sea.

US:
Light remnant smoke from fires burning in Siberia was seen entering
the California coast just north of San Francisco and extending to the
northeast across eastern Oregon and Washington and western Idaho where
it also merged with smoke from fires burning in eastern and south central
Oregon and southern Idaho.

Large fires burning in eastern Nevada have generated moderately dense to
dense smoke that extended to the northeast into northeast Utah. Lighter
smoke from these fires was detected moving into northwest Wyoming.

Mostly light remnant smoke was seen over much of the Plains states
from southern Canada into Texas and the northern Gulf of Mexico where
it curved to the northeast into southern Louisiana and the southeast
states. There were patches of moderately dense smoke embedded within
this larger area. The patches were over Nebraska/Kansas, the western
Gulf of Mexico and southeast Louisiana. This is likely a mix of smoke
from the Canadian fires and the fires in the western US.

DUST:
California/Oregon/Idaho/Nevada:
A plume of light to moderate blowing dust was originating from the Goose
Lake area along the California/Oregon border. This dust was moving to the
northeast and reached into western Idaho by sunset. A separate source
area was near Humboldt Lake in northwest Nevada. This dust was moving
to the east just reaching into central Nevada.

Colorado:
A small area of light blowing dust was detected over southeast Colorado
moving to the west northwest along the Arkansas river valley.

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

 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.