Monday, October 22, 2018

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z October 23, 2018.

SMOKE:
Western U.S./Southwestern Canada...
Similar to the past few days, a combination of seasonal burning and a few
wildfires scattered across portions of California, Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, and western Montana in the U.S. and southern British Columbia in
southwestern Canada were responsible for numerous areas of mainly thin
density smoke. The most significant patches of smoke were over central and
western Oregon and roughly the northern two-thirds of California. Thicker
smoke was generally confined relatively closer to some of these fires.

South Central Canada/North Dakota/Northwestern Minnesota...
A tremendous amount of seasonal/agricultural fires were detected over
southern Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba in south central Canada and
the northern half of North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota in the north
central U.S. Many smoke plumes of primarily thin density were visible
moving to the southeast with some of the plumes merging to form larger
areas of smoke by the end of the day.

Southeastern U.S...
Some smoke was seen with more than a dozen of the seasonal fires scattered
across the Southeastern U.S. though cloudiness moving across the region
did interfere with smoke detection in satellite imagery.

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

 


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.