THROUGH 1930 April 2, 2021
Central and High Plains United States... Widespread agricultural burning was observed over a large part of the Central and High Plains. Light to moderate density smoke was observed over most of Missouri and Iowa. Remnant light to moderate density smoke was observed in area spanning from northeastern Oklahoma, eastern Kansas, eastern Nebraska, and into the eastern portions of the Dakotas. Smoke also spanned from Missouri, Iowa and into western fringes of Illinois and Wisconsin due to a weather system in the area. Widespread agricultural burning continued to produce new smoke, primarily light in density, that moved northward with the remnant mass. It is possible there is additional light to moderate density smoke mixed with the obscuring cloud cover in the high plains near the Canadian border. Southern Plains United States… Widespread agricultural burning continued into the southern plains states of Arkansas, western Louisiana and eastern/central Texas. A large number of primarily light density plumes were observed moving northwest in Arkansas. Motion was general westward in Louisiana and Texas, with plumes becoming mixed with cloud cover in central Texas and making it increasingly difficult to discern light smoke from light clouds. It is possible there is additional light smoke in central and eastern Texas that is currently obscured by cloud cover. Southeastern United States... Widespread agricultural fire activity over the southern states of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida was producing numerous light density smoke plumes moving predominantly southwest with some plumes extending into the Gulf of Mexico originating from Florida. Mexico, Eastern Pacific, and Central America... Widespread seasonal fire activity was observed over Mexico, in particular its western coast. A massive region of remnant smoke that was light to moderate density was observed extending from the coast far beyond the Baja peninsula into the Pacific Ocean. Smoke and dust appeared to be wrapped into a weather system and was being drawn out to sea. New smoke plumes of varying density were producing new smoke, which contributed to the very distinct and very large area of smoke observed off of the Pacific coast of Mexico. New individual plumes seemed to move westward into the ocean, and the large remnant plume extended from the southern portion of the Baja peninsula south into Central American waters. Dust... West Africa and Eastern Atlantic Ocean Earlier today, a very large amount of Saharan dust was observed close to the coast of West Africa over parts of the Eastern Atlantic Ocean in earlier GOES visible satellite imagery. Dust seemed to extend near the equator into the central Atlantic and southernmost portions of the Caribbean Sea. J. Levine 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