DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1700Z July 15, 2021
SMOKE:
Canada/Northern CONUS/Greenland/North Atlantic/Pacific off the coast
of California/Baja...
An enormous area of smoke of varying density covers much of the U.S. with
the exception of a portion of the far northwestern U.S. generally west
of the Cascades and the South Central and Southeastern U.S. Smoke also
blankets much of Canada with the exception of far western Canada and
a portion of Quebec and Hudson Bay though cloud cover in these areas
hindered detection of smoke from satellite imagery. In addition, a
moderately dense to thick area of leftover smoke was seen over the
northwestern Atlantic to the south of Greenland and to the east of
the Canadian Maritimes. Finally, thin density smoke also appeared to
extend to the southwest and off the coast of southern California and
Baja. Virtually all of this smoke was due to a very significant number of
wildfires across central, south central, western and southwestern Canada
and across the northwestern and western portions of the U.S. Within
this huge mass of varying density smoke was a large patch of thick
smoke affecting a sizable portion of the northwestern U.S., as well as
southwestern, central, and south central Canada. Moderately dense smoke
extended farther to the east and southeast of the area of thick smoke
and was seen over the north central and central U.S. and from the Middle
Mississippi Valley region to the east and northeast as far as a portion
of the northeastern U.S. and the Mid-Atlantic region.
Alaska…
Wildfires were still detected in satellite imagery especially over
central and east central Alaska with thin density smoke also visible
over a good portion of Alaska, the northern part of the Gulf of Alaska,
and the Yukon in northwestern Canada.
DUST:
Eastern Mexico/Northern Central America/Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean Region…
A rather thin layer of Saharan dust was visible this morning spreading to
the west over eastern and southeastern Mexico, the western and southern
Gulf of Mexico, northern Central America, and a good portion of the
Caribbean region including Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. More Saharan dust
stretched from just east of the Caribbean region all the way 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