DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z June 24, 2020
SMOKE: South Central and Southwestern United States/Northern Mexico…. A broad area of varying density smoke attributed to the ongoing wildfires burning in the Southwestern U.S. was seen across Arizona, New Mexico, western and southern Texas, and northern Mexico. Moderately dense smoke stretched from central and southern Arizona to southwestern Mexico, northern Mexico, and far western Texas while the thickest smoke was located over east central and southeastern Arizona especially near and to the north and east of the Bighorn Fire in southeastern Arizona. The Bush Fire in Arizona also appeared to be producing significant smoke along with a new fire north of Phoenix while the Mangum and Bringham Fires in Arizona and the Tad Pole, Good, and Vics Peak Fires in southwestern New Mexico were mostly obscured by cloud cover limiting smoke information from satellite imagery. Western Mexico… Seasonal fires along western Mexico resulted in mainly thin density smoke over that region which also extended off the west coast of Mexico and over the Pacific DUST: Caribbean Sea… The massive dense Saharan dust cloud continues to gradually spread farther to the west with virtually all of the Caribbean Sea and the islands of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Cuba now covered by the cloud which also extends over the southern Bahamas, Central America, and the Yucatan Peninsula and possibly a portion of the Bay of Campeche and the far southern Gulf of Mexico. 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