Sunday, August 13, 2018

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

 


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.