DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z October 17, 2020
SMOKE:
California/Nevada/Arizona/New Mexico/Eastern Pacific…
The ongoing wildfires in California resulted in more thick smoke
especially over east central, southeast, and south central California
with the smoke moving in several different directions. Some of the
smoke had moved offshore to the southwest, while smoke on the eastern
periphery of the area, moved more to the east affecting western Nevada
as well as far western Arizona. More wildfires in central Arizona and
along the Arizona-New Mexico border were producing moderately dense to
thick smoke which moved generally to the east.
Colorado…
Large wildfires continue to burn to the west and southwest of Fort Collins
in north central Colorado and were emitting dense smoke plumes which
quickly spread to the southeast reaching west central Kansas by sunset.
South Central and Southeastern U.S…
The light leftover smoke associated mainly with the Western U.S. wildfires
which was seen earlier this morning across portions of the South Central,
Southeastern, and Eastern U.S. was barely discernible late this afternoon
in satellite imagery. If any smoke from the Western U.S. wildfires
was still present it was either too thin to see in satellite imagery
and/or it was covered by cloudiness which was impacting some of this
area. However, quite a few individual smoke plumes were seen in central
and southern Alabama, central and southern Georgia, and the Florida
panhandle from seasonal fire activity in that region. The smoke was
moving generally to the south and southeast. Also, a concentrated area
of seasonal/agricultural fire activity in northeastern Arkansas and
southeastern Missouri produced many smoke plumes which moved to the east
forming a larger patch of mainly thin density smoke which spread over
into southwestern Kentucky and western Tennessee.
North Dakota/Minnesota/South Central Canada…
Another day of significant seasonal/agricultural type fire activity was
present over northern and eastern North Dakota, northwestern Minnesota,
and the southern parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. A few smoke plumes
were seen moving to the east though cloudiness spread over the area
during the afternoon which definitely limited additional detection of
smoke in satellite imagery.
JS
Earlier This Morning...
DUST:
Tropical Atlantic Ocean and eastern Atlantic Ocean….
Saharan dust was observed emerging off the African coast today, extending
to west of the Cabo Verde islands.
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