DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z August 23, 2019
SMOKE:
North Central U.S./Central and South Central Canada...
An area of thin density leftover smoke was barely visible late this
afternoon and evening stretching from eastern Manitoba and western Ontario
southward over Minnesota and southeastward from there over Wisconsin. This
smoke may be either from lingering long range transport from wildfires
burning recently in Siberia or possibly from the wildfires burning in
southern Alaska.
Southwestern U.S...
The large patch of smoke seen earlier this morning across portions of
Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico from a few wildfires burning
in these states was not visible late this afternoon and evening due to
significant cloud cover spreading over the region. Significant smoke
was still likely being produced by a number of these fires since the
fires were still prominently seen in satellite imagery through breaks
in the clouds.
Alaska/Bering Sea/Gulf of Alaska...
A number of wildfires continue to burn across the southern part of Alaska
resulting in smoke which was visible especially over southern Alaska
and off the southwest coast of Alaska over the Bering sea with some of
the smoke beginning to move to the south over the eastern part of the
Aleutians. The thickest smoke was located closer to the large fire on the
Kenai Peninsula and near one of the wildfires burning in southwestern
Alaska. Cloudiness over northern Alaska and over the Gulf of Alaska
hindered smoke detection from satellite imagery in those areas. More
thin density smoke attributed to the Alaska wildfires and/or the Siberia
wildfires was visible across the Yukon and Northwest Territories and
into northern and central Alberta.
DUST:
A patch of relatively thick blowing dust originated from a source in
northeastern Baja just north of the Gulf of California and spread to
the north reaching the border of Southern California just before sunset.
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