DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z September 4, 2017
SMOKE: Continental US/Southern Canada... An unbroken area of smoke is seen spanning most of the northern and central US and southern Canada from the Pacific Coast to the Great Lakes and Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. The smoke covers most of northern and central California northward to southern British Columbia where the smoke then turns to the east across Idaho, Montana and Wyoming into the northern and central Plains reaching as far south as Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. It continues east thru the mid and upper Mississippi Valley to the western Great Lakes with a more narrow finger across the length of Tennessee and North Carolina and then off the mid Atlantic Coast before turning to the north toward Cape Cod. The thickest smoke covered a large area from northern California into western and central Oregon, eastern Washington, northern Idaho and then fanning out across most of Montana and into the northern Plains reaching Minnesota and Iowa. Central Canada... A cluster of wildfires in northern Saskatchewan were producing a plume of moderate to dense smoke that extended to the southeast across central Manitoba into western Ontario. A few other smaller fires over extreme southwest Nunavut were generating an area of light smoke that extended to the southeast into northwest Alberta. Pacific Ocean... Smoke from the western wildfires extends off the Pacific Northwest coast and then curls counter-clockwise southward spiraling to nearly 20N roughly midway between southern California and Hawaii. DUST: Montana/Saskatchewan... A plume of blowing dust continued into this evening originating from Big Muddy Lake in south central Saskatchewan and moving to the southeast across far northeast Montana and into western North Dakota. 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