DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1600Z August 18, 2017
SMOKE: Much of Canada/Northern Great Lakes/New England... An expansive mass of varying density smoke covers an extensive portion of Canada. Smoke of at least thin density has been analyzed over virtually all of northern and eastern Canada. This smoke plume even covers the southern portions of Greenland and is being incorporated into a cyclone off the Newfoundland coast south of Greenland. Within the enormous shield of smoke are areas of thicker smoke which are affecting the southern part of the Northwest Territories and portions of Nunavut, as well as northern and central portions of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and western Hudson Bay. This thicker smoke is believed to be mainly from larger wildfires throughout central Canada. These fires are not found as easily today with clouds obscuring the view across much of the Northwest Territories, northern Manitoba, and southern Nunavut. Alberta/Northwestern CONUS/Great Plains... A region of moderately dense to thick smoke blanketed southern Alberta, southwestern Saskatchewan, Montana, and North Dakota. A smaller area of dense remnant smoke can be seen over Nebraska and Iowa that is being incorporated into a cyclone over Minnesota. This smoke plume extends southwest into northern portions of the Mississippi River Valley. This smoke plume is likely the result of fires over southern British Columbia, northern Idaho, western Montana, and Washington state, although cloud cover is obscuring much of the fire and smoke activity across British Columbia. Southern Oregon/California Coast... A number of wildfires scattered across central and southern Oregon, as well as northwestern California, are responsible for an area of thin to moderately dense smoke which covered much of southern Oregon, far northern California, the California coast, and portions of the Pacific just off the northern California coast. Thicker smoke was noted particularly over central and southwestern Oregon, and northwestern California closer to some of the more concentrated wildfire activity. DUST: Leeward Islands/ Western North Atlantic... A Saharan dust layer can be seen in GOES-East Visible Imagery from over the Leeward Islands, including Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, northward into the open North Atlantic south of approximately 30N. This feature appears to be spreading westward and northward toward the Bermuda Triangle Central America/Western Caribbean... A second region of Saharan dust can be seen across much of Central America and portions of the Caribbean just east of the Yucatan Peninsula. This feature is moving generally to the west. -Hosley 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