DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z June 22 2016
SMOKE: Southwest US/Central Plains to the Lower Mississippi Valley: Several wildfires burning in the southwestern US were responsible for a expansive area of thin to moderately dense residual smoke which stretched from off the southern California and northern Baja coast to southern Wyoming, Colorado across the Central Plains and to the southeast likely reaching at least as far southeast as the lower Mississippi Valley. Clouds associated with convection obscured the full extent of this area of smoke over Utah, Colorado, Arizona and southern California. The Beaver Creek fire along the Wyoming/Colorado was producing a significant heavy density smoke plume which was traveling east along with the remnant smoke from the wildfires in the US Southwest. The Cedar fire was fanning light to heavy density smoke to the north. Canada/Midwest: An expansive area of residual light to heavy density smoke was seen rotating clockwise across northern British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. This area of smoke originated from wildfire activity over central Alaska with most of the smoke coming from two wildfires southwest of Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. A thin ribbon of light to moderate density residual smoke originating from wildfire activity in Alaska extended from Alberta southeast across the Great Lakes region into northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania and was traveling to the southeast. DUST: Atlantic/Caribbean: Some thin density aerosol which may be Saharan dust was seen over a portion of the Atlantic south of the Bahamas extending over Cuba and the Caribbean to the Yucatan. -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