DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY

THROUGH 0050Z September 20, 2020

SMOKE: United States, Central Canada, Northern Atlantic... Remnant smoke from wildfires occurring across the western U.S. continues to affect a large swath of the country this afternoon. Moderate-to-heavy density smoke covers most of the Great Plains including Texas, Oklahoma, western Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, western Iowa, and the Dakotas, extending further north into central Canada (Alberta and Saskatchewan). Lighter density smoke extends outward from the main plume above for a few hundred miles, affecting the northwestern U.S., British Columbia, Manitoba, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, western Kentucky, western Tennessee, central-northern Louisiana, central-southern New Mexico, southern Arizona and northern Mexico. The portion of the smoke over the northern Great Plains was being pushed east towards the Great Lakes, while the areas along the Mississippi Valley were seeing an additional influx of smoke from local agricultural burning. After a relative reduction in smoke emissions yesterday, all major wildfires in California were again releasing heavy smoke this afternoon impacting the entire state with the exception of areas south of Los Angeles county with plume trajectories generally moving towards the east and into Nevada. In addition to that, the Mullen Fire in southern Wyoming was emitting a very thick smoke plume towards the northeast and into southwestern South Dakota. A second large plume of light-to-moderate smoke also linked to western U.S. wildfire emissions is seen extending for hundreds of miles over the northern Atlantic and moving east-northeast towards the U.K. 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: http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/land/fire/currenthms.jpg GIS: ftp://satpsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/FIRE/HMS/GIS/ KML: http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/land/fire/fire.kml (fire) http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/land/fire/smoke.kml (smoke) ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING THIS PRODUCT SHOULD BE SENT TO: SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov