DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z April 15, 2016
SMOKE: Central to North Central US and Great Lakes region: A portion of the leftover thin density smoke seen earlier this morning due to yesterday's seasonal burning over the Central US was still visible stretching from Minnesota to Michigan. Cloudiness in this region did interfere with additional information on the extent of this smoke late this afternoon and evening. Once again, another significant flare up of seasonal fires occurred especially over eastern and southeastern Kansas and far northeastern Oklahoma resulting in numerous smoke plumes of varying density which congealed into a larger mass of smoke which moved to the north covering much of eastern Kansas and southeastern Nebraska. Bay of Campeche/Gulf of Mexico: Seasonal burning over Mexico and Central America was responsible for a large area of mainly thin density smoke spread over the Bay of Campeche and the southern and central Gulf of Mexico. Patches of more dense smoke were confined to the southern Bay of Campeche and inland over southeastern Mexico and Central America. Cloudiness over the Gulf of Mexico though did interfere with additional information on the extent of the smoke. DUST: Southwestern US: Strong gusty winds were noted in surface observations over a rather broad region including central and southern California and portions of central and southern Nevada. While these winds were likely kicking up areas of blowing dust, not much in the way of dust could be seen in satellite imagery due to cloudiness passing over the region. However, occasional observations of blowing dust were noted over southern California and a possible patch of blowing dust was visible over far southern California near the Salton Sea just prior to sunset. JS 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