DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1600Z March 25, 2016
SMOKE: Offshore of the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast US: An thin but stretched out area of aerosol could be seen this morning running from just off the Outer Banks of NC northeastward across Cape Cod, MA to just southwest of Nova Scotia. This is believed to be remnant smoke though its source is not entirely clear. The smoke most likely came from fires in Mexico, Cuba, Central America, and the Southeast US drifting northeast ahead of the eastern US weather front. There is a chance though that some of this smoke could be that which moved east from fires in the Central US; in particular the large Anderson Creek grass fire along the Oklahoma/Kansas border, which had burned over 400,000 acres as of Thursday. Western and Central Gulf of Mexico/Bay of Campeche: Several areas of thin remnant smoke were observed over parts of the western/central Gulf southward to the Bay of Campeche. Patchy cloud cover over western parts of the area and more dense cloud cover over the eastern Gulf of Mexico likely obscures some smoke as well. Much of this smoke is from fires in Mexico yesterday. A patch of smoke off the coast of Louisiana/Texas is thought to be remnant from the Anderson Creek Fire though. DUST: Western Gulf/Lower Mississippi River Valley/Midwest: Elevated dust/sand could be seen in morning imagery stretched from the Lower Mississippi River Valley southwest across the northwestern Gulf/far southern Texas/far northeast Mexico mixing with the small amount of observed smoke. The dust/sand likely came from the White Sands National Monument in south central New Mexico and dry lake beds in Texas as well as dust in northwest New Mexico, northeast Arizona and Texas over the past two days. Sheffler 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