July 17, 2004
INTEX: Smoke in the midwest
As seen in these MODIS Terra images, Alaskan smoke was pouring into the midwest U.S. today, particularly Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and as far south as Kansas and Oklahoma. If you look carefully, particularly at the Minnesota image, you can see that the smoke is above the clouds. The eastern U.S. is hazy-cloudy, but likely just from regional haze (not smoke)... yet. I would anticipate the smoke will come east within a few days.
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Both the smoke and the haze was clearly visible in the MODIS AOD data from the IDEA site.
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The smoke can be seen in the University of Wisconsin lidar image for today, although perhaps not as intensely as you might expect.
The NOAA GASP AOD also showed the smoke over the midwest and a haze plume off the Atlantic
Moderate air quality at the ground level through the midwest and east.
