DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1645Z August 18, 2023
SMOKE: United States/Canada/Northern Mexico/Atlantic Ocean/Far Eastern Pacific Ocean... Rather widespread cloud cover was noted across portions of Alaska and northwestern Canada which also limited information on some of the recent wildfires and smoke impacting those regions. Despite the clouds, much of the enormous area of smoke attributed primarily to the numerous wildfires in western and northwestern Canada was seen this morning covering much of Canada and the U.S. including far eastern Alaska, a portion of the Atlantic just off the U.S. east coast, the Labrador Sea, some of the north Atlantic, the northern Gulf of Mexico, northern Mexico, and a small part of the east Pacific off the Baja coast. Embedded areas of thicker smoke were seen over some of northwestern and far north central Canada through breaks in the clouds. More thicker smoke was present over southwestern Canada along with the far northern parts of northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana, and extending to the east from there to south central Canada. Patches of thicker smoke had also spread to the south and southeast over some of the central U.S. A relatively narrow band of moderately dense smoke was visible across the southeastern U.S. to the Mid-Atlantic coast. Much farther ot the east, significant cloud cover was present over a good portion of southeastern Canada which prevented satellite detection of any of the recent wildfire activity in western Quebec and any of the smoke which might be present in this area. Northwestern California/Central and Southern Oregon… Wildfires scattered across northern California and west central Oregon were responsible for areas of moderate to thick density smoke which impacted portions of west-central Oregon, southern Oregon, and northwestern California as well as a small part of the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of northwestern California. Thinner density smoke extended a bit farther off the Oregon and California coast linked mainly to these fires. DUST: Southern Gulf of Mexico/Central America/Yucatan Peninsula/Southern Florida/Bahamas/Caribbean Region/Atlantic Ocean… A sprawling area of generally thin density Saharan dust was visible this morning extending from the Bay of Campeche, the Yucatan Peninsula, and some of Central America to the east and northeast over virtually all of the Caribbean region, the southern Gulf of Mexico, southern Florida, and the Bahamas. The dust appeared to be a bit thicker to the east of the Bahamas and north of the Caribbean region over the open Atlantic. 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