DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1700Z July 22, 2021
SMOKE:
Canada/U.S./Atlantic…
Numerous wildfires over the western and northwestern U.S., southwestern,
south central, and central Canada were continuing to produce significant
quantities of smoke with a huge mass of varying density smoke from
these fires covering much of Canada with the exception of a portion
of extreme western Canada and portions of eastern Canada. The smoke
also was seen over most of the U.S. with the exception of portions of
western California, western Oregon, and western Washington. Relatively
smoke free areas were also noted from the southwestern U.S. extending to
the northeast over the central Rockies and over parts of the southeastern
U.S. As was the case yesterday, thick smoke from the fires in northeastern
and east central California and south central Oregon spread to the
northeast and eventually merged with thick smoke being emitted by the
fires in western Montana, northern Idaho, eastern and southeastern
Washington, and southern British Columbia. From there the thicker smoke
blanketed much of the central and southern portions of Canada reaching as
far east as western Quebec with smoke contributions also provided by the
many wildfires scattered across central and south central Canada. Thicker
smoke also was visible over the north central U.S. and shifting to the
south across a portion of the central U.S. before narrowing somewhat as
it spread east across the Mid-Atlantic region and the northern part of
the southeastern U.S. Significant smoke was also seen moving offshore of
the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast with detached batches of remnant smoke
well out over the Atlantic getting closer to the coast of Europe and
Africa near the edge of the satellite viewing area.
Alaska/Northwestern Canada…
Wildfires were detected in polar satellite imagery scattered across
central and east central Alaska, the Yukon, and portions of the Northwest
Territories in northwestern Canada but an outage of GOES-17 imagery
prevented much in the way of detail of the extent of smoke in satellite
imagery across the region. A very rough estimate of smoke in this area was
provided by the edge of the GOES-16 viewing area which indicated smoke was
likely present over far eastern Alaska and much of northwestern Canada.
DUST:
Gulf of Mexico/Mexico/Bahamas/Caribbean Region/Atlantic...
A thin to moderate batch of Saharan dust was observed moving westward
over the Bay of Campeche and the southern Gulf of Mexico and inland over
portions of southeastern Mexico including the Yucatan Peninsula. The
dust also appeared to spread over northern Central America and covered
virtually all of the Caribbean region including Cuba, Hispaniola, and
Puerto Rico along with the area north of there including the Bahamas. A
secondary surge of dust with increasingly thicker density toward the
east was seen across much of the tropical and subtropical Atlantic all
the way to western 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