DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 1445Z May 11, 2012
Dust: Northern/Canadian Rockies through Northern Great Plains/Southern Canadian Prairie: A broad area of thin mid to upper level Asian dust can be seen along the eastern side of the large ridge anchored over the US West Coast and Southern BC...into the trof and through to a shortwave trof moving into Ontario from Manitoba. This trof with suspended dust extends south across MT and ND. Within this trof a narrow ribbon of moderate to dense area can be seen stringed out across central Alberta down to the eastern ridges of the Rockies in MT around Missoula to Helena then turning NE extending across Glasgow, MT into extreme SE Saskatchewan across to southern Lake Winnipegosis. This ribbon is on average about 50km wide. A second narrow and less dense ribbon oriented SW to NE extends from Broadus, MT to Winnipeg and is about 30-50km wide too. All dust/sand within this trof is steadily moving E with little bit of SE component particularly on the western side of the trof/east side of the ridge. Smoke: South Texas/N Mexico/Western Gulf of Mexico: A very large area of thin to moderate smoke from numerous agricultural fires across the Yucatan Peninsula, Southern Mexico, and Northern Central America is covering the western portions of the Gulf of Mexico west of 93W up as far north as 25N (into severe convective squall line just off the Texas coast and as far west as the spine of the Sierra Madre Oriental. Thin smoke is moving due east off the plateau from a fire near 26N102.5W in South Central Coahuila and is covering much of northern Nuevo Leon into far S. Texas overrunning the low level smoke from the south (making it tough to distinguish where one area begins and the other ends). Gallina THIS TEXT PRODUCT IS PRIMARILY INTENDED TO DESCRIBE SIGNIFICANT AREAS 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: http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/land/hms.html GIS: http://www.firedetect.noaa.gov/viewer.htm KML: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/kml.html ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THIS PRODUCT SHOULD BE SENT TO SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov