DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z July 27, 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 RESPONSES TO: SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov.
SMOKE:
Eastern Alaska/Canada/North Central US/Appalachian Region...
The enormous mass of smoke which has been present for several days
continued to be visible stretching from eastern Alaska and western
Canada eastward across virtually all of Canada to off the southern tip
of Greenland. The thinner density portion of this smoke also covered
approximately the northern half of the US extending as far east as New
York and the Middle Atlantic region. Thicker embedded areas of smoke
were noted over portions of central and western Canada with some of the
moderate to thick density smoke nearing the US-Canada border from northern
Washington eastward to Montana. Moderately dense smoke did appear to
stretch a bit farther to the south across the Dakotas and the northern
half of Minnesota. Cloudiness over some of Alaska interfered with smoke
detection in that region. The source for this smoke was believed to be
long range transport from wildfire activity over Europe and Asia though
some contribution from wildfires over Alaska and northwestern Canada is
also occurring.
Western US...
The Valley Fire in southern California, Ferguson Fire in central
California, and the Carr Fire in northern California along with the
cluster of fires in southwestern Oregon were responsible for widespread
significant density smoke coverage over much of California, northwestern
Nevada, and the southern half of Oregon. The Carr Fire and the Valley
in particular appeared to have major flare ups this evening resulting
in extremely large and dense plumes which moved rapidly off to the
northeast. The thick plume from the Valley Fire extended over southern
Nevada (including Las Vegas) and northwestern Arizona. The leading portion
of smoke from these fires and other wildfires burning over the Western
US appeared to stretch eastward over the Rockies where it merged with
the smoke described in the paragraph above.
DUST:
A large area of Saharan dust extended from near and to the east and south
of Puerto Rico westward over the Caribbean to the Yucatan Peninsula,
the south central and western Gulf of Mexico, the Bay of Campeche,
and over Mexico.
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/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