Sunday, July 1, 2018

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE
IMAGERY THROUGH 0300 UTC July 2, 2018.

NESDIS IS INVESTIGATING THE UTILITY OF THIS TEXT NARRATIVE. IF YOU FIND
THIS PRODUCT VALUABLE, PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL RESPONSE TO THE FOLLOWING
ADDRESS INDICATING HOW YOU AND/OR YOUR AGENCY USE THE INFORMATION. THANK
YOU. SEND EMAIL RESPONSE TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov.

SMOKE:
California/Nevada...
The Pawnee Fire and especially the County Fire in west central California
continued to burn during the day resulting in a large expanse of
moderately dense to very thick smoke which spread primarily to the
southwest again passing across the San Francisco metro area and well
offshore of the coast of central California. Additional smaller coverage
of moderately dense to thick smoke from the Lions Fire was seen in the
central Sierra Mountains with thin density smoke from this fire and the
west central California fires covering a portion of central California
and western and central Nevada.

Northeastern Nevada/Northern and Northeastern Utah...
New fires erupted over northeastern Nevada leading to a a couple of plumes
of thin to moderate density smoke which quickly moved to the east over
northern Utah. Locally thicker smoke was seen closer to the fires in
northeastern Nevada. A significant thick smoke plume grew rapidly and
spread to the east from a quickly expanding wildfire in Wasatch County
of northeastern Utah.

Area from the Southwestern US across the Central Plains to the Great
Lakes Region...
Wildfires continued to burn in central and southwestern Utah as well as
southwestern, central and southeastern Colorado resulting in a very large
area of varying density smoke which covered a portion of southern Utah,
northern Arizona, much of Colorado with the exception of the northwest
quarter and the northern half of New Mexico. The smoke then extended
eastward over Kansas and Oklahoma before thinning out as it advanced
to the northeast reaching near Lake Michigan. The smoke appeared to
be especially thick over southwestern Colorado as well as central and
eastern Colorado downwind of the most active wildfires in those areas.

Eastern Great Lakes Region/Northeastern US/Middle Atlantic/Southeastern
Canada...
Leftover detached smoke of mostly thin density likely originating from
the wildfire activity in Colorado and Utah appeared to be trapped under
the large upper level ridge axis and covered a broad region stretching
from the eastern Great Lakes Region across southern Quebec and over the
Northeastern US and down to the Middle Atlantic Region and off the coast.

Southeastern Canada...
Numerous wildfires burning in a west to east axis across central Quebec
produced moderate to thick density smoke which generally moved to the
north and northeast during the afternoon and early evening. A larger
left over swath of thin to moderate density smoke mainly from the Quebec
fires stretched from the southeast part of Hudson Bay to Newfoundland.

DUST:
Oregon...
A couple of relatively narrow swaths of mainly thin density blowing dust
emanated from dry lake beds in south central Oregon. The dust spread to
the southeast during the early evening.

JS


Earlier This Morning...
DUST:
Area from the Tropical Atlantic to eastern Mexico and the South Central
US...
An extremely large area of Saharan dust extended from the west coast of
Africa across the tropical Atlantic, over the Caribbean, Central America,
eastern Mexico, the southern and western Gulf of Mexico, and inland over
southeastern/eastern Texas, western Louisiana, and possibly as far north
as Arkansas.

-Westbrook


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/data/land/fire/currenthms.jpg
GIS:    ftp://satpsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/FIRE/HMS/GIS/
KML:    http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/land/fire/fire.kml (fire)
        http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/land/fire/smoke.kml (smoke)
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.