DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1600Z April 26, 2015
SMOKE Gulf of Mexico: A large area of light smoke from the seasonal agricultural burning in Mexico and Central America spreads across a large part of the Gulf of Mexico stretching from the Bay of Campeche in the southwestern Gulf northward to the Texas coast and then curves to the east along the Louisiana coast and into northern Florida near Cross City. There are some patches of moderately dense smoke embedded within this area and there is also some contribution from the oil rigs in the Bay of Campeche. Western Great Lakes States to the Northern Plains: Several ribbons of mostly very thin remnant smoke were detected this morning over portions of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, western Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, the eastern Dakotas, eastern Nebraska and northern Missouri. This is likely still remnant smoke from fires in Siberia over a week ago. DUST Caribbean Sea: A surge of elevated light blowing dust from the Sahara was seen again this morning covering most of the eastern and southern Caribbean Sea and surrounding islands. 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