DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z August 18, 2016
SMOKE: California/Oregon/Nevada to the Plains: The numerous wildfires that have been burning in the West have left a large area of remnant smoke that covers much of central California, much of Nevada, southeast Oregon, western Utah, southern Idaho, Wyoming and southern Montana. The smoke then spreads into the northern Plains over northwest Nebraska, western and central South Dakota and southern North Dakota. An area of thin density smoke has become detached from the main area of smoke to the north and covers northern Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. Very thin density smoke also extends across central Missouri into central Illinois and northern Indiana. Extensive cloud cover over Idaho, Wyoming and Montana are hindering determination of the exact extent of the smoke but moderate density smoke is generally from central Idaho across southern Montana and northern Wyoming into the Dakotas. An area of dense smoke was seen associated with the Rail fire in east central Oregon. A patch of moderate density remnant smoke was over central and southwestern Nevada. The large wildfires along the central California coast (the Sobranes and Chimney fires), the Blue Cut fire east of Los Angeles and the Horseshoe fire in the southern Sierra Nevada were all producing moderate to very dense smoke plumes this afternoon and evening. Smoke from the Blue Cut fire extended to the northeast into southwest Nevada. Moderate to dense smoke from the coastal fires was mostly along coastal areas and also extending to the south southwest offshore. Northwestern into Central Canada: Mostly thin remnant smoke from a few wildfires burning near the British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories border was moving to the east southeast around a large cyclonic circulation over northern Canada and extended across northeast British Columbia into northern Alberta and northern Saskatchewan to just south of Reindeer Lake. Ruminski 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