DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z April 15, 2018
SMOKE: Central and South Central US... Wildfires continue to burn in western Oklahoma and northwestern Texas producing very long narrow plumes of moderate to locally thick smoke which are spreading to the southeast. In addition, leftover smoke of thin to moderate density which moved to the north yesterday evening reaching up into Nebraska and Iowa, began moving back to the south and eventually to the southeast around the southern end of the low pressure circulation. This resulted in a large area of thin to moderately dense smoke which stretched from southwestern Nebraska across western and central Kansas and over much of Oklahoma and northern and eastern Texas. Gulf of Mexico/Gulf Coast... A huge area of thin density smoke attributed to significant seasonal burning occurring in Mexico and Central America was present over the Bay of Campeche as well as much of the central and western Gulf of Mexico. The smoke may extend inland over Louisiana though cloudiness is interfering with smoke detection from satellite imagery. Patches of thicker density smoke were common closer to some of the fire activity over Mexico and Central America. DUST: Southern and Southeastern Texas/Northern Mexico... A very thin aerosol which is believed to be at least partly composed of remnant blowing dust was visible moving to the southeast over southern and southeastern Texas and northern Mexico during the day. 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