DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1630Z August 13, 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: Southern half of Canada/Much of the US with the exception of the Southern, Southeastern, and far Eastern portions of the nation... The major wildfire outbreak across portions of the Western US and Western Canada continued to produce massive amounts of smoke with an extremely large area of varying density smoke which basically covered all of the southern half of Canada and a good portion of the US with the exception of perhaps southern Arizona, southern New Mexico and the area from Oklahoma and Texas eastward to the Southeast US and northward from there along the eastern seaboard. The leading edge of the thinner density smoke appeared to be moving east and well offshore passing by southern Greenland out over the open Atlantic. Thicker regions of smoke within this larger shield extended from British Columbia, Washington state, and northwestern Oregon eastward across northern Idaho, northern Montana, and virtually all of southern Canada to as far east as Quebec. Another swath of thicker smoke stretched from southwestern Oregon, northern and central California to the east and northeast across the northern half of Nevada, southern Idaho, northern Utah, western and central Wyoming, and southern and eastern Montana. At this point, the 2 areas of thicker smoke merged over the North Central US and south Central Canada. In addition, some of the relatively thicker smoke spread to the south and even to the west over portions of the Central US from the western Great Lakes Region and Middle Mississippi Valley westward to the Northern and Central Plains. The primary sources for all of this smoke were significant wildfires occurring over western Colorado, north central Utah, southwestern and northwestern Montana, central and northern Idaho, north central Washington, southwestern Oregon, and northern and central California in the US, and mainly British Columbia in western Canada though there were other more widely scattered wildfires farther east in central and south central Canada which were contributing as well. Earlier this Morning... BLOWING DUST: Caribbean Sea/Gulf of Mexico... An area of Saharan dust extended over much of the western Gulf of Mexico and extended inland into portions of Texas and Louisiana. 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