Friday, March 25, 2016

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z March 26, 2016

SMOKE:
Western Gulf/Lower Mississippi River Valley/Tennessee River Valley:
A large area of an optically thin aerosol was seen in satellite imagery
this evening moving eastward and spanned from southern Texas through
the Lower Mississippi River Valley into the Tennessee River Valley.
This is believed to be remnant smoke and dust/sand though its source
is not entirely clear.  There is uncertainty in the full extent of
this smoke due to its diffuse nature. The smoke most likely came from
fires in Mexico and 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:
Nevada:
A small plume of light density dust/sand was observed in west-central
Nevada traveling towards the southeast from north-central Churchill
county to southwest Lander county Nevada.  The source of this aerosol
appears to be Humboldt Sink.

Western Gulf/Lower Mississippi River Valley/Tennessee River Valley:
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.

-Cronin

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

 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.