DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z August 21, 2020
SMOKE:
Western and Central U.S./Southwestern Canada/Eastern Pacific off the
California and Baja Coast/Northern Mexico…
A tremendous mass of smoke which is primarily from large wildfires
burning in northern and central California with some contribution from
other wildfire activity in the Western U.S. was present over virtually
the entire Western U.S. and extending eastward to portions of the Great
Plains states from North Dakota to Texas. The smoke also extended up
over the southern parts of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan,
and Manitoba in southern and southwestern Canada and to the south over
northern Mexico, as well as far off the coast of northwestern Mexico
and southern California over the eastern Pacific. The only portions of
the West which were relatively smoke free were over far northwestern
California, western Oregon, and western Washington due to onshore flow
pushing the smoke farther inland to the east. Embedded within this huge
mass of smoke was an unusually large area of thick density smoke which
blanketed a large part of California and extended far to the northeast
over southeastern Oregon, much of Nevada, southern Idaho, northwestern
Utah, much of Wyoming, and the eastern two-thirds of Montana. Another
band of rather dense smoke stretched from northwestern Arizona and
southwestern Utah southeastward to south central New Mexico. Thicker smoke
also extended well to the southwest off the coast of southern California.
DUST:
Saharan dust was visible stretching from the African coast westward to
the central subtropical Atlantic where it wrapped around the circulation
of Tropical Depression Thirteen. The leading edge of the dust appeared
to be close to Puerto Rico with some possible additional Saharan dust
near and to the north and northeast of the Bahamas.
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