DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z June 2, 2017
SMOKE.... Area from Northwestern Canada to Central and South Central Canada and into the the North Central US and Great Lakes Region... Patches of primarily thin density smoke from wildfires burning mainly over northern Alberta was seen at times through small breaks in the clouds over northern Alberta extending to the north into the southern part of the Northwest Territories and eastward into northwest Saskatchewan. Additional information on the extent and density of smoke from these wildfires could not be determined given the significant cloud cover present in the region. Farther to the east and southeast, additional large areas of mainly thin density smoke were seen across northern and central Saskatchewan, southern Nunavut, most of Manitoba, and the western portion of Hudson Bay and western Ontario. From there the smoke spread southeastward into a portion of the North Central US from eastern North Dakota across northern and central Minnesota to as far east as Lower Michigan. These large areas of smoke were believed to be from a combination of the aforementioned wildfires over northern Alberta and seasonal agricultural burning occurring over the southern half of Saskatchewan, southwestern Manitoba, eastern North Dakota, and northwestern Minnesota. Mexico/Western Texas... Numerous fires burning over western Mexico were responsible for a large mass of thin to locally moderately dense smoke which covered a good portion of Mexico and extended northward into far western Texas. DUST... Caribbean/Yucatan Peninsula/Southern Gulf of Mexico.... An area of thin Saharan dust extends from the Caribbean westward across the Yucatan Peninsula and into the southern Gulf of Mexico where it becomes obscured by cloudiness. 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