DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0101Z October 16, 2023
SMOKE: Northwestern and North Central Canada… A large area of wildfires continues to be detected scattered across portions of British Columbia, Alberta, and the south central part of the Northwest Territories. Most of these wildfires are generally burning at relatively low intensity resulting in a large swath of primarily thin density smoke which extends from northeastern British Columbia and northern Alberta to the northeast and east across the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and the northern tip of Quebec before becoming obscured by cloud cover. North Dakota/Saskatchewan/Manitoba… Seasonal burning in North Dakota, southern Saskatchewan, and southern Manitoba combined with some remnant smoke form the ongoing fires from western Canada created an area of light density smoke around the surrounding area. Some of these fires were producing moderate density smoke plumbs as evening approached. California… A cluster of fires in central California could be seen producing mostly light to moderate density smoke plumes which moved generally towards the northeast. Arizona… A cluster of fires in the northern half of Arizona could be seen producing mostly light density smoke plumes which moved generally spread around the fires. One wildfire in Northern Arizona was also observed releasing light to dense smoke spreading out around the fir as evening approached. Texas/Louisiana… A cluster of wildfires along the Gulf Coast in southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana was releasing light smoke that was observed moving south over the Gulf of Mexico. SMOKE/AEROSOL: Patches of mainly thin density residual smoke and unknown aerosols were present today over eastern Hispaniola and off the western coast of Mexico over the Pacific Ocean coastline. Eglin 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