DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z March 8, 2017
SMOKE: Florida: A long narrow mainly thin density smoke plume from a wildfire burning near Naples Florida extended to the west and northwest and offshore over the Gulf of Mexico. The remnants of the plume then fan out as it spreads northward over a portion of the Florida panhandle. Residents of eastern Collier County have been evacuated due to the smoke and fire. SMOKE and DUST: Central and South Central US... The large wildfires in the panhandles of both western Oklahoma and northwestern Texas along with southwestern Kansas continued to burn overnight into this evening with some of the areal extent and intensity gradually diminishing as the winds died down. Satellite imagery this morning though did still show a number of active hot spots within these fire complexes. Visible satellite imagery indicated an expansive region of leftover thin to moderate density smoke and blowing dust covering a good portion of the Southern Plains from south central Kansas southward over Oklahoma and much of the northern two-thirds or so of Texas. The combination of smoke and blowing dust also then spread to the northeast along a frontal boundary over Arkansas, southern and eastern Missouri, and the southern half of Illinois. The smoke and dust may extend farther to the northeast, but cloudiness interfered with additional information from satellite imagery. DUST: Colorado... Dust continued to blow in north east Colorado it was observed traveling south east into Nebraska and Kansas. -Westbrook 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