DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z April 8, 2018
SMOKE: Central US... A significant amount of seasonal burning was occurring today across eastern Nebraska, the southern half of Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, northern Oklahoma, and the eastern half of Kansas which resulted in many thin density smoke plumes. Over eastern Kansas, the fire activity was concentrated enough that the individual smoke plumes combined to form a larger area of thin to moderately dense smoke. Southern Florida... Thin density smoke from the fire activity over Cuba moved in a northerly direction with some of it appearing to make it as far north as the Florida Keys and possibly the extreme southern tip of the Florida peninsula. Bay of Campeche/Southern Gulf of Mexico/Western Caribbean... Areas of thin density smoke from seasonal fires over southeastern Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula were visible over a portion of the Bay of Campeche and the extreme southern Gulf of Mexico. A thicker batch of smoke from fires over Central America spread to the north and over the far western Caribbean just east of the Yucatan Peninsula. DUST: Nevada... A narrow axis of moderately dense blowing dust originated from the Carson Sink region in west central Nevada and moved to the east-northeast nearly reaching the northeastern Nevada-northwestern Utah border. Southern California/Southwestern Arizona... A swath of moderately dense blowing dust originated from the region south of the Salton Sea in far southern California and moved to the east reaching into southwestern Arizona as well as far northern Baja and far northwestern Mexico. Western Gulf of Mexico/Northern Mexico... A combination of smoke from seasonal fires and blowing dust likely kicked up by a frontal boundary pushing southward could be seen over the western Gulf of Mexico and nearby northern Mexico just south of the Texas border. 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