DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1645Z May 15, 2022
SMOKE: Area from the South Central U.S. to the Great Lakes Region and Southeastern Canada… The large Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon wildfires in north-central New Mexico and the Bear Trap and Black wildfires in southwestern New Mexico continued to emit significant smoke during the morning. Moderately dense to locally thick smoke from the Bear Trap and Black fires was mainly impacting the southern half of New Mexico while a more substantial mass of moderate to thick density smoke from the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires was visible extending to the southeast over east central New Mexico with leftover moderately dense to thick smoke then fanning out and covering western Oklahoma, and a good portion of Texas from the northern panhandle southward across the Rio Grande into northeastern Mexico and over to the Gulf of Mexico off the southeastern Texas coast. Thinner density smoke mainly from the New Mexico wildfires was also present across a large part of the central and south central U.S. and extended from there to the northeast over the Great Lakes region and over southern Canada reaching the southern tip of Hudson Bay. Cloud cover over some of southeastern Canada did interfere with additional information on the extent of the smoke in that region from satellite imagery. Western and South Central Canada/North Central U.S… A swath of thin density aerosol was visible stretching from northern Alberta to the southeast over southern Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba. The aerosol was also seen over northeastern Montana, North Dakota, northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and a portion of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Lake Superior. While it was thought this was leftover smoke primarily from the New Mexico wildfires which wrapped completely around the periphery of the circulation around a large low pressure system located in central Canada, there is some possibility that it also could be long range dust transport from Asia. Canadian Maritimes/Atlantic Ocean… Leftover thin density smoke attributed primarily to the New Mexico wildfires was seen this morning extending from the Canadian Maritimes to the southeast over the open Atlantic. SMOKE/AEROSOL: Mexico/Gulf of Mexico/Southern Florida/Pacific South of Mexico and Central America... A very large mass of mostly light to moderate density smoke primarily from widespread seasonal fire activity in Mexico and Central America and possibly mixed with aerosols from oil/gas flaring and other industrial sources in the region was observed over much of Mexico and at least the northern part of Central America. The smoke/aerosol mixture also extended over the Bay of Campeche along with the western and far southern Gulf of Mexico before curving to the northeast over western Cuba and southern Florida. The thickest smoke was primarily located over southern Mexico and northwestern Central America and along the southern coastal areas of those regions over the Pacific. 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 map: https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/land/fire/currenthms.jpg Smoke data: https://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/FIRE/web/HMS/Smoke_Polygons Fire data: https://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/FIRE/web/HMS/Fire_Points ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THIS PRODUCT SHOULD BE SENT TO: SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov