DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z Thursday, September 5, 2020
SMOKE: Western U.S./Pacific... Intense wildfire activity was observed emitting very thick smoke across much of California, Oregon, and Washington State today. The SQF Complex, August Complex, North Complex, Red Salmon Complex and Slink Fires, along with a relatively new fire in south central Oregon and the White River Fire in north-central Oregon were observed emitting thick smoke this afternoon. The smoke, starting at the SQF complex in Sequoia National Park, extends east-northeast into the central Valley, where the smoke moves north. Once the smoke enters northern California, the smoke moves north-northeast to northeast over Oregon. The Red Salmon and August Complexes have thick continuous smoke plumes extending between 150 and 200 miles away from the parent fire. In addition to this new smoke, light to moderate density remnant smoke from fire activity in California and Oregon over the past few days exists out over the Pacific Ocean, southwestern Canada, the Pacific Northwest, the Intermountain West, and the Great Plains. Much of the remnant smoke is moving off towards the east or southeast. Southern Montana into the Great Plains and Great Lakes... Wildfire activity across southern Montana, as well as the Cameron Peak fire in north-central Colorado, is contributing some smoke to the remnant smoke layer described above. Smoke from the fires in southern Montana is moving east while smoke from the Cameron Peak Fire started moving east-southeast this afternoon. DUST… Far eastern tropical Atlantic… A layer of Saharan Dust was observed moving west off the African West Coast. The leading edge of this layer had moved west of the Cabo Verde Islands by sundown in the area. Hosley 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