DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1700Z June 19, 2021
SMOKE:
Much of the Lower 48/Southeastern Canada/Northern Mexico/Extreme western
Atlantic/Northwestern Gulf of Mexico/Eastern Pacific to the west of
California and Mexico…
The massive area of thin density smoke this morning stretched from off
the coast of California and western Mexico to the east and inland over
California and the remainder of the Southwestern U.S. and eastward from
there over much of the Central and South Central U.S. From there the smoke
continued eastward over the Mid-Atlantic region and the Carolinas as well
as to the northeast along the Northeastern U.S. coastal region to far
southeastern Canada. The smoke also appeared over the far western Atlantic
off the U.S. east coast, the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, and northern
and western Mexico. Within this huge expanse of thinner density smoke
was a sizable area of moderately dense smoke extending from southeastern
California and southern Nevada eastward to the Central and South Central
U.S. reaching possibly as far east as the Ohio Valley. Moderately dense
smoke also was present over portions of northern and western Mexico and
over central California near and to the northeast of the Willow Fire with
moderately dense smoke extending possibly as far as Lake Tahoe. Thicker
smoke was noted over a good portion of Arizona and western New Mexico
and closer to some of the wildfires in western Mexico. The sources for
all of this smoke are the wildfires burning especially in Arizona and
New Mexico along with some wildfire activity in portions of California,
Utah, Montana, and western Mexico.
Alaska/Northwestern Canada…
The wildfires in central and east central Alaska were no longer visible
in satellite imagery due to cloud cover this morning and only one fire
was partially visible in the Yukon of northwestern Canada. Residual
thin density smoke though from these fires could still be seen over
the eastern Yukon, the southern part of the Northwest Territories and
possibly extending southward over northern British Columbia and northern
Alberta. No smoke was seen over Alaska likely due to cloud cover.
DUST:
Caribbean region/Bahamas/Southern Florida/Eastern Gulf of Mexico…
Very little of the western portion of rather thin Saharan dust which had
been seen over Cuba, the western Caribbean, and a portion of the eastern
Gulf of Mexico was no longer visible this morning possibly in part due to
some cloudiness across the region. A residual west-east oriented swath
of the dust was still visible due east of the eastern coast of central
Florida over the Atlantic. Farther to the east, more Saharan dust was
located over Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the eastern Caribbean, and the
islands to the east and southeast of Puerto Rico and also extended well
to the east over the subtropical and tropical portions of the Atlantic
to the west coast of Africa.
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