DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z September 5, 2016
SMOKE: North Central US/Northeastern US/Middle Atlantic Region/Southeastern Canada: The large detached batch of mainly thin density smoke shifted farther to the east by late in the afternoon and early in the evening extending from northern Minnesota northeastward over Ontario, the southern part of Hudson Bay, and eastward across Quebec. The smoke then spread to the southeast over Newfoundland and Labrador along with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It also shifted southward and even to the southwest around a large ridge of high pressure affecting The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Region. This large mass of leftover thin density smoke was attributed to recent wildfire activity in the Western US. Area from Idaho across Montana and Wyoming to the Northern Plains: Significant cloudiness in this region prevented any information on smoke extent or density through satellite imagery despite the presence of numerous active wildfires over the past week. South Central US: The aerosol which was annotated as smoke earlier in the day over a portion of the Southeast and South Central US was still visible late this afternoon and evening though it is no longer known how much of this aerosol is composed of smoke. DUST: Southern California/Southwestern Arizona: A swath of thin to locally moderately dense blowing dust originated from a source region to the south of the Salton Sea in far southern California and moved to the east and east-northeast into far southwestern Arizona by sunset. Caribbean/Puerto Rico: The sizable area of what is believed to be Saharan dust continued to be visible over the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Hispaniola, and Cuba. 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