DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z August 5, 2017
SMOKE: Pacific Northwest to the Mid Atlantic... The long running and numerous wildfires over southern and central British Columbia, Washington, Idaho and Montana have produced massive amounts of smoke that are blanketing a large portion of the country. The smoke extends from the southern half of British Columbia eastward across southern Alberta and into southern Saskatchewan in Canada. The smoke also extends from off the Pacific Northwest coast across Washington and Oregon, northern California, northern Nevada into Idaho, Montana, northern Utah and Wyoming. The smoke area then spills into the Plains states from the Dakotas to Texas and curls back to the northeast across the lower Mississippi Valley, the Tennessee Valley and up the central Appalachians as far as central Pennsylvania. Large areas of moderately dense to dense smoke were seen across much of the northern tier of states and adjoining portions of southern Canada from western North Dakota westward to the Pacific. Northern to Central Canada... Wildfires are scattered across a broad area from eastern Northwest Territories to northern Saskatchewan, Manitoba and western Ontario. Smoke from these fires covers much of eastern Northwest Territories, Nunavut, northern Alberta, northeast Saskatchewan, northwestern to southeastern Manitoba and into southwest Ontario. DUST: Caribbean... A large area of light Saharan dust is seen over the eastern Gulf of Mexico stretching across the Florida peninsula and Cuba to the Bahamas, Dominican Republic and eastward. Ruminski 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