DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1700Z August 20, 2021
SMOKE:
U.S./Southern Canada/Atlantic/Pacific off the West Coast...
Significant wildfires continue to burn especially over northern and
central California, Oregon, Washington, northern Idaho, and southern
British Columbia resulting in an extremely large mass of smoke of varying
density which stretched from well off the coast of California and Baja to
the east and inland over a fairly substantial portion of the U.S., south
central and southeastern Canada, and well across the northern Atlantic
likely reaching Europe. Only parts of the Southwest, South Central,
Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and North Central U.S. along with
central and south central Canada were relatively smoke free in satellite
imagery and in some instances, that was due in part to cloud cover. Thick
smoke was seen over a sizable part of California, Oregon, and Washington
as well as western Idaho, and along a narrow west-east elongated swath
over north central Nevada, central Utah, and west central Colorado. The
thicker smoke also appeared to spread to the west and southwest
and offshore of California over the eastern Pacific. Farther to the
northeast, a few larger wildfires in south central Canada were primarily
responsible for moderate to thick density smoke which extended to the
east across southern Ontario, and southern Quebec while also grazing
the northern and northeastern U.S. from northern Michigan to northern
Maine. Some smoke contribution from the southern British Columbia and
western U.S. wildfires was also likely in this region.
Southeastern Alaska/Northern and Western Canada/Gulf of Alaska...
What is likely leftover thin density smoke primarily associated with
recent wildfire activity in Siberia was visible this morning stretching
from the Bering Sea across the Aleutians and over the Gulf of Alaska. From
there the visible apparent smoke fanned out into a much broader area
which was seen over far southeastern Alaska and much of far northeastern,
northern, northwestern, and western Canada.
DUST:
Eastern Caribbean/Atlantic...
A very large area of thin to moderate density Saharan dust was seen
stretching from Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and the eastern Caribbean region
to the east and 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