DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0340Z August 21, 2021
SMOKE:
U.S./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,
Southern Rockies/Plains, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and the
Northern Plains 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.
Alaska/Canada...
What is likely leftover thin density smoke primarily associated with
recent wildfire activity in Siberia was visible 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:
Atlantic...
A very large area of thin to moderate density Saharan dust was detected
in the Bermuda area, around Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, and most of the
Caribbean Sea.
Konon
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