DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0330 May 11, 2017
SMOKE: Florida/Georgia/Carolinas/Western Atlantic... The West Mims Fire near the border of southeastern Georgia and northeastern Florida continues to emit moderately dense to locally thick smoke which spread to the east during the day. Leftover thinner density smoke from this fire covers a large area including portions of the eastern Carolinas and offshore over the western Atlantic. A swath of thinner density smoke from this fire complex also appears to be present across the central Florida peninsula and just offshore over the far eastern Gulf of Mexico. Gulf of Mexico/Texas/Mexico... A large area of thin density smoke covers much of Mexico along with the Bay of Campeche and the far western Gulf of Mexico. The smoke likely extends at least as far as southern Texas though cloudiness is interfering with the northern extent of the smoke. This particular area of smoke is due to the ongoing seasonal fires in southeastern Mexico and Central America. Numerous fires were also seen over western Mexico with smoke plumes of various density spreading to the northeast with a number of the plumes merging to form a much larger mass of smoke. The northern most portion of this smoke has likely spread at least as far as western and southwestern Texas. Northwestern US... Seasonal fires clustered in Oregon and far northern California produced plumes which moved to the northeast and merged into larger patches of smoke over south central and central Oregon. Farther to the northeast, a similar situation exists over northern Idaho and western Montana with a number of fires and associated smoke plumes present. North Dakota/Minnesota/South Central Canada... Seasonal fires in southern Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba as well as North Dakota and Minnesota were emitting smoke plumes of primarily thin density which spread quickly to the southeast. The most numerous fires were in Saskatchewan and Manitoba which resulted in the more significant areas of smoke being located in that region. DUST... Northern Mexico/Southern New Mexico/Western Texas... A patch of thin density blowing dust originated from source regions in northern Mexico near the New Mexico border and spread to the east and northeast reaching into southeastern New Mexico and western Texas. 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