DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z March 2, 2017
SMOKE: Western Gulf of Mexico... A rather large region of thin to locally moderately dense aerosol likely composed at least in part by smoke attributed to seasonal fires burning over southeastern Mexico and Central America and oil rigs in the Bay of Campeche was visible across a large portion of the Bay of Campeche and the western and northwestern Gulf of Mexico. Florida Straits/Florida Keys... Several plumes of thin density smoke from fires burning in western Cuba spread northward over the Florida Straits and even reaching near the western Florida Keys by sunset. Florida...Scattered fires over the Florida peninsula resulted in quite a few smoke plumes with several of them merging into larger patches of smoke. The most significant area of smoke affected eastern Florida including Cape Canaveral before moving offshore over the Atlantic to the east and northeast. Oklahoma/Texas...Fires were analyzed scattered across portions of Oklahoma and Texas during the afternoon with a number of visible smoke plumes which moved quickly off to the south and southeast. 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