July 6, 2006
Smoke over the Great Lakes
According to today's OMI map, fires in western Canada generated large amount of smoke that is advected toward the Midwest. As seen on the OMI map below, the aerosol index exceeds 4 in the Great Lakes area. Here is another view of the smoke over the Great Lakes (MODIS Rapidfire).
OMI map and GASP image showing the smoke plume in the north. Note that there is slightly higher AOD southeast of Florida. This is probably due to the African dust.
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The HMS map and the GASP image also indicate that there is increased AOD over the Midwest. According to the EPA AirNow map, some monitoring sites in North Dakota are under moderate PM2.5 conditions. Most of Oklahoma, Georgia and southern California are also under moderate air quality. The NAAPS/Aeronet graph shows an AOT around 0.4 for fine particles at the Bondville station in Illinois on the 5th.
