DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
SMOKE Alaska to the Mid Atlantic: An unbroken area of smoke from the prolific number of wildfires over Alaska and central/northern Canada stretches across the width of Alaska and into Canada. The smoke covers nearly all of Canada from Hudson Bay to eastern British Columbia and dives south into the central US, from northern Montana across North Dakota and into Minnesota where the smoke curves southward across most of the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio Valleys and into the Mid Atlantic states and southern New York. The smoke also reaches back into eastern Oklahoma and southeast Kansas. Embedded within this tremendous area of smoke area very large areas of moderately dense to dense smoke, which likewise stretches across most of the length of the smoke area from Alaska through most of central Canada down into the mid section of the US and then eastward to the Mid Atlantic. DUST A broad area of Saharan dust was seen covering much of the southern half of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Small areas of light blowing dust were detected over the desert regions of southern California this afternoon. 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