Wednesday, October 18, 2017

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1700Z October 18, 2017

SMOKE
Far Northwestern Gulf of Mexico/Southeastern Texas/Western Louisiana...
At least a couple of fires along the southeastern Texas coast continued to
burn overnight resulting in a sizable area of mainly thin density smoke
which spread inland over a portion of southeastern Texas with another
patch along the Texas-Louisiana border. Smaller areas of moderately
dense to locally thick smoke were located closer to the actual fires.

Northern and Central California...
Compared to the past week or so, the visible smoke over northern and
central California was quite a bit less this morning though cloudiness
offshore and over southern California did interfere with smoke detection
in satellite imagery. Several relatively small areas of thin to locally
moderately dense smoke could be seen over portions of northern and
central California.

DUST
Leeward Islands and the Atlantic north and east of there...
A broad region of Saharan dust was visible covering much of the Leeward
Islands with the western edge very close to the Virgin Islands and
Puerto Rico. The dust extended out over the open Atlantic well to the
north and east of these islands.

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

 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.