DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z February 24, 2020
SMOKE: New Jersey… Similar to yesterday, fires in central and south central New Jersey produced smoke plumes of thin to locally moderate density which spread quickly to the east before the plumes merged to form a larger area of leftover smoke which moved well off the New Jersey coast out over the Atlantic south of Long Island. Southeastern U.S… A few smoke plumes were visible over southern and central Florida, the Florida panhandle, southern Georgia, and South Carolina though increasing cloud cover greatly limited additional smoke plume detection. North Central California… Fires in the Sacramento Valley produced thin to locally moderate density smoke in that region. DUST: Oregon/Idaho… Significant swaths of thick density blowing dust originated from sources in Lake County of south central Oregon and quickly spread to the east while gradually thinning out. Additional smaller bands of moderate to thick blowing density blowing dust were visible a bit farther to the east and southeast over southeastern Oregon. The dust from all of these sources moved into southwestern Idaho prior to sunset. Washington/Oregon… Numerous bands of mainly thin to perhaps locally moderately dense blowing dust originated from sources in central and south central Washington and north central Oregon and moved rapidly to the east with the leading edge of the dust likely reaching northern and central Idaho by late in the day. Nevada… A few patches of moderate density blowing dust could be seen emanating from sources in northwestern Nevada and moving to the east over north central Nevada. Western Texas/Southeastern New Mexico… A swath of moderate density blowing dust was seen originating from the Salt Basin Dunes in western Texas and moving quickly to the east paralleling the border of southern New Mexico and Western Texas. Additional thinner density blowing dust was emanating from a number of sources in south central and southeastern New Mexico and moving eastward. More blowing dust was visible originating from sources in west Texas between Lubbock and Midland. This dust spread to the east and northeast headed in the general direction of southwestern Oklahoma-northwestern Texas border. 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