DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0130Z August 7, 2023
SMOKE: Northern United States, Alaska, Canada, Northwestern Atlantic Ocean… Major widespread wildfire activity continues especially across western and northwestern Canada along with central and east central Alaska. Another significant cluster of wildfires was present over west central Quebec to the southeast of Hudson Bay. All of these wildfires were primarily responsible for a massive area of smoke which covered much of Canada, the northern half of Alaska, as well as the northern and U.S. and the eastern U.S. coast stretching for approximately 1,500 miles over the northwestern Atlantic off New England. Areas of medium-to-heavy density smoke spread across central and northern Alaska, northern Yukon, most of the Northwest Territories, southern British Columbia, large parts of Saskatchewan, and western Quebec. Arizona/New Mexico/Southern Plains... Wildfires were also observed in northern and eastern Arizona and in western New Mexico with plumes of heavy smoke dispersing towards the east. An area of remnant light smoke was also seen over northern Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Mexico/Southern Gulf of Mexico... Two separate plumes consisting of light remnant smoke were observed over the southern Gulf of Mexico and Baja California. The former included smoke from gas flaring activity in the Bay of Campeche. DUST: Central and Eastern Caribbean Region/Atlantic Ocean... Light density Saharan dust was seen spreading stretching westward from the Lesser Antilles, over Hispaniola, and eastern Cuba and the Bahamas. WS 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