DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1700Z June 15, 2021
SMOKE: Portions of the Southwestern, Western, Central, Southeastern, and Eastern U.S./Southwestern Canada/Far western Atlantic/Northern Gulf of Mexico/Northern and Northwestern Mexico/Pacific off the west coast of Mexico and southern California... The enormous area of thin density smoke attributed primarily to ongoing wildfires burning mainly in western Mexico, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and a new one in south central Montana was seen this morning stretching from off the coast of western Mexico and southern California inland across the Southwestern U.S. and northward from there over the Rocky Mountain region all the way up into southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan in southwestern Canada. The smoke also covered much of the Central and Southeastern U.S. and along and off the Mid-Atlantic coast and coastal areas of New York and southern New England, as well as the northern Gulf of Mexico. The band of aerosol across the South Central and Southeastern U.S. from Texas across the Gulf coast region to the eastern Carolinas was a bit more concentrated in density though some of this aerosol, in addition to thinner density smoke, was believed to be composed of other atmospheric pollutants pooled along a frontal boundary. Portions of the North Central and Northeast southward into the Ohio Valley region appeared to be relatively smoke free. Embedded within this large mass of thin density smoke were areas of thicker density smoke which were visible over northwestern Mexico including Baja and off the west coast of Baja. Thicker smoke also extended across much of the Southwestern U.S. and northward over Utah, western Colorado, and southern Wyoming. DUST: Tropical Atlantic Ocean to the Eastern Caribbean Islands... The western and leading portion of a very large mass of Saharan dust was seen this morning spreading to the west across Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. The dust extended well to the east across a good portion of the tropical and subtropical eastern Atlantic to western Africa. The earlier area of Saharan dust which was located farther to the west in the western Caribbean, Bahamas, Gulf of Mexico and eastern Mexico was no longer visible at least in part due to cloudiness over this region. 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