Saturday, June 6, 2009

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0230Z June 7, 2009

Western Canada/Alaska:
The large area of thin smoke that was seen over western Canada this
morning had mostly disappeared from view throughout the day. By this
evening, only smaller areas of thin remnant smoke were observed over the
northern Northwest Territories, off the British Columbia coast northeast
of Vancouver Island, and over and just off the southeast Alaska coast.

Great Lakes region to northeast US/east Canada:
Thin remnant smoke that spread from Lake Erie to Quebec and Newfoundland
this morning had moved east ahead of a cold front through the day and
was seen this evening from the southern New England coast stretching
northeast along the coast of Maine to southeast Newfoundland. An embedded
area of moderately dense smoke was seen that ran parallel to the coast
of Maine, but was just offshore. A small area of thin smoke was also
seen from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario. These areas of smoke may have
originated in northwest Canada and Alaska, with added contribution from
smoke producing fires in North Dakota and south central Canada over the
past few days. The smoke has spread great distances over the past few
days due to strong upper level jet flow across Canada and the US.

-Sheffler


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













 


Unless otherwise indicated:
  • Areas of smoke are analyzed using GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST Visible satellite imagery.
  • Only a general description of areas of smoke or significant smoke plumes will be analyzed.
  • A quantitative assessment of the density/amount of particulate or the vertical distribution is not included.
  • Widespread cloudiness may prevent the detection of smoke even from significant fires.