DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z July 6, 2015
SMOKE: Alaska/Canada/Central to Eastern U.S: The tremendous number of large wildfires continue to burn over vast stretches of northern Saskatchewan and Alberta with additional fires in southern Northwest Territories and northeast British Columbia. There is a bit of a break in the fires over the Yukon Territory and eastern Alaska but another large batch of fires is seen in central and southwest Alaska. These fires are producing an enormous amount of smoke that ranges virtually unbroken from the far northeastern tip of Siberia across Alaska, southern Yukon and southwest Northwest Territories and then covers nearly all of central Canada from the Rockies to Quebec. The smoke has also been drawn south into the US by a large cyclone over Hudson Bay and covers much of the northern Plains, the upper and mid Mississippi Valley, The Great Lakes States, Ohio and Tennessee Valley and the northeast US before exiting off the New England and mid Atlantic coast. While much of the smoke is aloft there are vast stretches of dense smoke, most notably over the Great Lakes and vicinity and from central Saskatchewan southward into North Dakota and east across southern Manitoba and western Ontario into the western and central portion of Hudson Bay. There is also an area of dense smoke from central Alaska moving to the west and northwest across the Bering Straight into Siberia. Pacific Northwest: Wildfires burning in British Columbia continue to produce smoke that currently is moving southward along the British Columbia coastline and into the Pacific Northwest US including Washington State where additional fires are also generating smoke. In particular, two very large fires in southwest British Columbia are producing very dense plumes of smoke that have blanketed the southern portion of Vancouver Island and is spreading eastward into northwest Washington. The smoke extends as far east as western Montana and reaches south into northeast Oregon. DUST: Gulf of Mexico/Southern U.S/Atlantic Ocean: An expansive area of Saharan dust continues to be seen over much of the Caribbean and extending into the western and central Gulf of Mexico. The dust spreads to the coastline along southeastern Texas and inland through eastern Oklahoma and Missouri. The exact extent of the dust is difficult to determine due to the presence of clouds and the diffuse nature of the dust in the region. The dust is also seen over southern Florida and across the Bahamas into the Atlantic. , 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