DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 2330Z December 8, 2017
SMOKE: Southern California/Northwestern Baja California and northward along the Pacific coast... Smoke from the southern California wildfires, particularly the Thomas fire in Ventura county, continued to stream westward into the Pacific this afternoon and evening. Moderate to thick smoke was seen moving across the northern Channel Islands. The smoke then was being drawn northward and was light to moderately dense just off the California coast, except north of San Francisco where the smoke appears to be moving a bit inland. The smoke continued north and was seen off the western portion of Vancouver Island and then moving into west central coastal areas of British Columbia. The full/precise extent of the smoke over the Pacific was difficult to determine due to the presence of extensive cloud cover. DUST: Texas/New Mexico... Strong northerly winds across the region were generating areas of light blowing dust from the southern portion of the Texas Panhandle and extending south toward the Lubbock and Midland areas. Another small area of light blowing dust was seen over far southeast New Mexico along the Texas border and was also moving to the south. 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