DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1715Z October 20, 2020
SMOKE: California, Southwestern/Eastern U.S., and Northern Mexico. Wild fires in Northern New Mexico, as well as northern and central California continue to emit smoke resulting in moderate-to-heavy concentrations near their sources whereas a larger plume consisting of light smoke but also including pockets of moderate-density smoke that extends over most of California, southern and western Nevada, central/southern Arizona, southern New Mexico, western Texas, and northern Mexico. Another light density area of smoke which originated primarily from the Cameron Peak Fire in northern Colorado over the weekend has been pushed eastward by strong winds and now travels along the northern edge of the Adirondack Mountains in eastern Tennessee and expands northeast to cover most of Virginia/Maryland, and eastern West Virginia. Further visibility of this smoke as well as other parts of the area of interest are concealed by cloud cover. Plumes of high density smoke can be seen flowing east from the northern Colorado wild fires but are immediately concealed by cloud cover. TE 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