DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z August 24 2015
SMOKE Western/Central US and Western Canada to the Tennessee Valley and Great Lakes: An enormous amount of smoke from the wildfires that continue to burn in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and western Montana was seen stretching across most of the US. Smoke covers all of the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies and then dips into the Central Plains as far south as northern Texas. It continues into the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys and then curls to the north into the central Great Lakes. The area of central Tennessee and northern Alabama is likely mixing with or predominantly sulfates. The smoke also has slid south along the eastern slopes of the Rockies into eastern New Mexico. The heaviest smoke, which is moderate to dense, was seen covering northwest California, nearly all of Oregon, Washington and Idaho and into western Montana and northwest Wyoming. Smoke was also being drawn north into southern British Columbia although the full extent of the smoke was difficult to determine due to more extensive cloud cover. Smoke from the Rough fire in the central Sierra Nevada of California was spreading to the northeast into Nevada and northern and central Utah and merging with the smoke from the fires further north. The areas of moderately dense and dense smoke were mainly over the Sierra and to the east to the Nevada border and into west central Nevada. Central/Eastern Canada: A large area of remnant smoke originating from the wildfires in the western US is visible over a large portion of eastern Canada. It covered James Bay into southern Hudson Bay, all but far northern and far southwest Quebec and continued east across the southern half of Newfoundland and Labrador and the northern Gulf of St Lawrence before heading into the open Atlantic. A large portion of this mass was moderate to dense. DUST Caribbean: A surge of Saharan dust was seen across the southern Caribbean this afternoon and evening. The dust has reached the Gulf of Honduras along the Central American Coast. 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