DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1930Z July 22, 2017
SMOKE: Canada and northern US... A very large area of smoke continues to affect much of Canada and the northern tier of the US. While the long burning fires in British Columbia are mainly not detectable today due to cloud cover, the remnant smoke from these massive fires extends from British Columbia eastward across much of Alberta and Saskatchewan into southern Manitoba and southern Ontario. Another patch of the smoke lies along the British Columbia/Yukon border. The smoke also crosses much of the northern US from northern Montana across North Dakota into Minnesota and across the Great Lakes. Due to cloud cover this morning it was difficult to track the full extent of the smoke. Additional fires spread across much of the Northwest Territories from north of Lake Athabasca to Great Slave Lake and north of Great Bear Lake. Smoke from these fires covers much of central and eastern Northwest Territories and western Nunavut with a thin ribbon extending to the southeast across northeast Saskatchewan, central Manitoba and northern Ontario. California/Inter-mountain West and northern Rockies... The Detwiler Fire in east central California continues to produce a significant amount of smoke. This morning the smoke was seen traveling southwest and then gradually shifted eastward in a counterclockwise motion throughout the afternoon. Montanna... The Detwiler fire was seen still creating large plumes of medium density smoke traveling due east this morning and afternoon. This smoke was seen mixing with smoke from other nearby fires and remnant smoke from fires in Canada. DUST: Caribbean Sea/Western Atlantic.... The area of Saharan dust that has been tracking slowly to the west now covers much of the western Caribbean the Yucatan, Cuba, the Florida Straights and extends northeast across the Bahamas to Bermuda. -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