DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0140Z May 6, 2020
SMOKE: Southern Texas/Gulf of Mexico/Mexico/Central America/Eastern Pacific… An enormous area of primarily light density smoke emitting from a tremendous amount of fire activity throughout southern Mexico and into Central America. The area of smoke extended over central and southern Mexico, into the eastern Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and northward into portions of Texas. Within this region of light density smoke, smaller areas of medium and heavy density smoke were observed in southern Mexico. Cloud cover this evening obscured much of the visibility. Montana… Scattered fire activity throughout the region and northern plains was emitting scattered plumes of light density smoke. EARLIER THIS AFTERNOON... SMOKE: Southern Texas/Gulf of Mexico/Mexico/Central America/Pacific south of Mexico and Central America… The tremendous amount of seasonal fires detected in southern and southeastern Mexico and Central America resulted in a very large area of smoke extending from most of the western and central Gulf of Mexico and south Texas extending south through eastern and southeastern Mexico, Central America and portions of the eastern Pacific Ocean. Within this area of smoke, an area of moderate to high density smoke extended from portions of the southwest Gulf of Mexico into portions of southern Mexico. DUST: Caribbean Sea…. An area of Saharan Dust was located over most of the Caribbean Sea extending west into portions of Central America. Levine 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