DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0200Z APRIL 11, 2009
Southern Plains to the Southeast: Several of the destructive wildfires which erupted across portions of central and south central Oklahoma continued to burn during the day with smoke moving more in a southerly direction(which included the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area). Cloudiness moving across central and southern Texas interfered with determining the southern extent of these smoke plumes. Farther to the east, a band of haze which likely contains residual smoke and blowing dust could still be seen in visible imagery this afternoon extending from south central Mississippi northeastward to northwestern Georgia. Again, more clouds in this region also prevented more information on the extent of this residual smoke/blowing dust. Central Plains: Cloudiness cleared somewhat late in the afternoon allowing for smoke to be seen from numerous agricultural fires burning primarily across eastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma. The relatively small plumes were generally moving to the south. Gulf of Mexico: A patch of thin detached smoke from the ongoing seasonal fires burning in Mexico and Central America moved to the east-northeast across the north central Gulf of Mexico and into portions of the western Florida panhandle just prior to sunset. Additional thin smoke from these fires moved northward over the western Gulf of Mexico to just off the southern Texas coast. Cloudiness interfered with determining the northern extent of this area of smoke. Southern Arizona: Some blowing dust originating from northern Baja was visible moving to the northeast into south central Arizona. JS THE FORMAT OF THIS TEXT PRODUCT IS BEING MODIFIED. IT WILL NO LONGER DESCRIBE THE VARIOUS PLUMES THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVE FIRES. THESE PLUMES ARE DEPICTED IN VARIOUS GRAPHIC FORMATS ON OUR WEB SITE: JPEG: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/hms.html GIS: http://www.firedetect.noaa.gov/viewer.htm KML: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/kml.html THIS TEXT PRODUCT WILL CONTINUE TO DESCRIBE SIGNIFICANT AREAS OF SMOKE WHICH HAVE BECOME DETACHED FROM AND DRIFTED SOME DISTANCE AWAY FROM THE SOURCE FIRE, TYPICALLY OVER THE COURSE OF ONE OR MORE DAYS. IT WILL ALSO STILL INCLUDE DESCRIPTIONS OF BLOWING DUST. ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THESE CHANGES OR THE SMOKE TEXT PRODUCT IN GENERAL SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov