DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1600Z August 17, 2016
SMOKE: Area from Oregon/Nevada to the Central and Southern Plains: A large region of thin density smoke stretched from eastern Oregon and northern Nevada eastward across Idaho, the southern half of Montana, and Wyoming to the western Dakotas. From there, the smoke spread to the southeast over western and southern Nebraska, much of Colorado, and over a portion of the Central and Southern Plains. This smoke was emanating from a number of wildfires over the area including eastern Oregon, central and southern Idaho, western Montana, and northwestern Wyoming. Within the large area of thin density smoke, satellite imagery showed embedded moderately dense to thick patches of smoke extending from the wildfire in east central Oregon eastward all the way to the extreme western Dakotas. Southern California/Southern Nevada/Southwestern Utah/Northwestern Arizona: A large wildfire east of Los Angeles was producing a long thin plume of moderately dense smoke which stretched to the northeast across southern California into southwestern Nevada. A surrounding larger area of thin density smoke covered more of southern Nevada and also extended into southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona. West Central California: Thin density smoke from the fires in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties was visible over coastal portions of these counties and offshore over the Pacific. Very small patches of somewhat thicker density smoke were located close to the actual fires. Northwestern Canada: Thin to embedded moderately dense smoke attributed to a few wildfires burning in extreme northern British Columbia, the southern part of the Yukon and southwest part of the Northwest Territories, was seen moving to the east and southeast from north central British Columbia across northern Alberta and into northwestern Saskatchewan. 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