DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z July 29, 2016
Smoke: California/Northern Nevada: Moderately dense to thick smoke from the fire along the central California coast north of Monterey was visible spreading to the north and east over central California. Some of the moderately dense smoke also fanned out in a southerly direction reaching south central California. The surrounding larger area of thin density smoke reached even farther to the south over far southern California and Baja and offshore over the Pacific. The thin density surrounding smoke also extended north into northern California and southern Oregon and east across northern Nevada into southern Idaho. Idaho/Wyoming to the Central and South Central US: Widespread thin density smoke mainly attributed to the larger wildfires in northern Colorado, western Wyoming, and southwestern Idaho extended from southern Idaho and northern Nevada eastward to Nebraska and Kansas. The smoke then extended southward and even southwestward from there to southern New Mexico and far western Texas and also eastward through Illinois. The embedded patch of moderately dense smoke spread farther to the south and southwest from this morning and was located mostly over southern New Mexico. New surges of moderately dense to thick smoke from the active wildfires in northern Colorado, western Wyoming, southwestern Idaho, and also now from ones in northern Utah was visible moving to the east. Canada: A large area of thin to moderately dense smoke from recent wildfire activity around Lake Athabasca in western Canada covered a good portion of south central and central Canada. Farther to the northwest a swath of thin to moderately dense smoke from a fire complex located north of the Great Slave Lake could be seen fanning out to the north and east of the fire over the Northwest Territories. Thick smoke was present closer to the larger fire complex northwest of the Lake. Alaska: Cloudiness inhibited fire and smoke detection in Alaska during the day. The leftover detached area of possible thin density smoke seen this morning stretching from northeast Alaska over the Beaufort Sea was no longer visible later in the day. Farther to the west, smoke likely from fires in Russia was seen over a portion of the Bering Sea possibly nearing western Alaska though cloudiness was present over part of this region as well interfering with information on the extent of the possible smoke. DUST: Caribbean/Western Atlantic: Once again, possible very light density Saharan dust was observed in satellite imagery moving west across Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Cuba, a portion of the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and possibly reaching southern Florida and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. 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