DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0300Z July 22, 2022
SMOKE: Much of Canada, the CONUS, and the Gulf of Mexico/northern Mexico/North Atlantic… An expansive area of varying density smoke was analyzed from the southwestern Northwest Territory and Alberta south to northern Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico and east into the north Atlantic. The parent activity for much of this smoke is the active fires across northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, and the southern Northwest Territory. From the parent activity, the heaviest observable smoke wass moving east-southeast across the much of Alberta, southern and central Saskatchewan, southern Manitoba, and into Ontario. From here, some of the smoke wass getting caught up in a low pressure system over northern Manitoba, where the smoke was drawn northward. The smoke was not directly seen over portions of northern Manitoba, far northern Ontario, and Hudson Bay due to extensive cloud cover, but moderate density smoke was observed extending northward out from beneath the cloud cover. The moderate smoke then bifurcated into a west to west-southwestward moving portion over southeastern Nunavut and far southeastern Northwest Territory and an eastward moving portion across the rest of southern Nunavut, northern Hudson Bay, and into northern Quebec. The southern portion of this large area of smoke over the CONUS is likely also due in part to remnant smoke from wildfire activity in the western CONUS. Smoke extending from the Pacific Northwest around the monsoon flow towards the central Plains and Front Range and across the desert southwest. From the northern and central Plains eastward, the contributions are likely from both sources, with the Canadian smoke more dominant. The smoke is clearly seen from the Dakotas into Kansas and Missouri extending eastward across the Ohio and Tennessee valleys into the Great Lakes and southern Ontario. Thinner smoke can be seen extending as far south as the western Gulf of Mexico and central Florida, from where smoke is drawn northeastward ahead of a frontal system over the open north Atlantic and perhaps Maritime Canada. Another area of light remnant smoke was seen moving south over far northern Canada, with more light smoke seen north and west of Alaska. The source for these areas could be wildfires across Siberia or could be remnant from past wildfire activity in Alaska and northern Canada. Intermountain West… The Moose Fire in Idaho, along with one or two new fires in the same area, could be seen producing thick smoke moving east to east-northeast across southern Montana. Two other fires that ignited this afternoon were also seen producing smoke moving off to the east-southeast, with the one near Wyoming producing moderate to, at times, thick density smoke. BLOWING DUST: South-Central Oregon into Northwestern Nevada… Strong winds out of the southwest were observed transporting dust northeastward from Oregon’s dry Summer Lake and dry Lake Abert, as well as Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Dust was getting about 85 miles northeast from Summer Lake and about 85 miles east-northeast of the source in the southwestern Black Rock Desert. Hosley 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