DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z August 18, 2017
SMOKE: Much of Canada/New England... A huge mass of varying density smoke covers an extensive portion of Canada. The only spots of Canada where smoke has not been analyzed are parts of the Yukon and northwest British Columbia along with central and southern Ontario where cloudiness is hindering satellite detection of smoke. Within the enormous shield of smoke are areas of thicker smoke which are affecting the southern part of the Northwest Territories, as well as northern and central portions of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. This thicker smoke is believed to be mainly from larger wildfires in these areas. Farther to the east, more dense smoke was covering Nunavut and Hudson Bay and snaking to the south and southeast across portions of Quebec and over New England before spreading offshore over the Atlantic. This area of thicker smoke was also mainly attributed to the fires in central Canada. Finally, a huge mass of moderately dense to thick smoke from the ongoing wildfires in southern British Columbia extended eastward across southern Canada to southern Manitoba. Northwestern US/North Central and Central US... A region of moderately dense to thick smoke blanketed northern Idaho, much of Montana, northern Wyoming, and the Dakotas with a larger surrounding area of thinner density smoke which extended farther to the east and southeast over portions of the northern and central US. This smoke was mainly due to wildfire activity over Washington, the northern half of Idaho, and western Montana though some contribution of smoke from the British Columbia fires is also present. Oregon/Southern Idaho/Northern Nevada/California... A number of wildfires scattered across west central and southwestern Oregon as well as northern and Central California were responsible for an area of thin to moderately dense smoke which covered much of central and southern Oregon, northern Nevada, southern Idaho, and northern and central California. The smoke also extended off the coast of California. Thicker smoke was noted particularly over central and southwestern Oregon, and northwestern California closer to some of the more concentrated wildfire activity. DUST: Caribbean/Hispaniola/Cuba/Puerto Rico... The western portion of a large area of Saharan dust continued to shift farther to the west and was likely affecting Caribbean, Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico though cloudiness did interfere with detection in some of these spots. The dust extended to the east as well across the Windward and Leeward Islands, and farther to the east over the open Atlantic. 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