DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1615Z June 21, 2015
SMOKE Alaska/Yukon/British Columbia: A very large number of wildfires burning across much of the southern half of Alaska and into western Yukon are producing a broad area of smoke across most of Alaska and the adjoining eastern Bering Sea and extending east through western Yukon and south to northwest British Columbia. Embedded within this broad area of light density smoke are numerous patches of moderately dense to dense smoke near the larger and more active fires – particularly over southwest Alaska and from southeast Alaska into southwest Yukon. Central Canada: A broad area of light to moderately dense remnant smoke from fires in north central Canada can be seen from southeast Northwest Territory into northeast Alberta and moving through northern Saskatchewan. The smoke generally covers a small portion of central Manitoba and much of western Ontario, although the full extent of the smoke was not discernible due to extensive cloud cover this morning. The thickest smoke appeared to be associated with large fire complexes south of Great Slave Lake. DUST Gulf of Mexico/South-central US: A large area of Saharan dust continues to stream west across the Caribbean and into the western half of the Gulf of Mexico before being pulled northward into eastern Texas and Louisiana. The dust has moved in to the southeast region of Oklahoma and slowing moving in to southwest Arkansas. The dust is light to moderately dense with some patches of dense dust in the southwest Gulf of Mexico. Kibler/Kemal 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