DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0410Z August 22, 2021
SMOKE:
U.S./Canada/Atlantic/Pacific off the West Coast...
Wildfires in the western U.S. and southwestern Canada continued to burn
and were responsible for an extremely large area of smoke which affected
significant portions of the U.S. and Canada as well as the eastern Pacific
off the West Coast and the northern and central Atlantic between the
Canadian Maritimes and Northeastern U.S. and Europe. Thick smoke
primarily from the wildfires in the western U.S. covered a sizable portion
of California and the Pacific to the southwest of California and extended
farther inland over Nevada, southern and southeastern Oregon, southern
Idaho, and far western Utah. More localized thicker density smoke could
be seen closer to some of the wildfires in southern British Columbia.
Cloud cover over part of the Pacific Northwest limited smoke detection
somewhat in satellite imagery but at least some moderate smoke was visible
in between breaks in the clouds in that region. Farther to the east, a
large batch of moderate to thick density smoke attributed in part to the
western U.S. wildfires as well as a few wildfires over south-central
Canada
and northern Minnesota was visible stretching along the northern tier of
the U.S. from Michigan to Maine and across eastern Ontario and western and
central Quebec. Finally, a rather concentrated patch of dense smoke,
linked to wildfires in Canada and the western U.S., was present over the
eastern Atlantic likely moving into Europe.
Alaska/Canada/Western U.S. ...
Some remnant thin density smoke likely from recent wildfire activity in
Siberia was visible spreading to the southeast across far southern Alaska,
the Gulf of Alaska, and over British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest
where it merged with smoke from the wildfires in southern British Columbia
and the Western U.S. Additional thin density smoke likely from the
Siberian wildfires was seen spreading to the east and southeast across
northwestern Canada.
DUST:
Atlantic...
A very large area of mainly moderate density Saharan dust was detected
reaching as far west as the eastern Bahamas, eastern Cuba, Hispaniola,
Puerto Rico, and the central and eastern Caribbean. The huge mass of
dust extended from these areas to the east and over virtually the entire
tropical and subtropical Atlantic to the western coast of Africa.
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