June 16, 2008
Smoke from NC Fires Continues to Flow East Over Atlantic; Code Orange and Yellow Conditions along East Coast Ahead of Cold Front; Code Orange Ozone in California
The fires in North Carolina and northern California that Ray and Meloe discussed the past few days continue to burn. The Hazard Mapping System (HMS) Fire and Smoke Product (below on the left) illustrates the extent of smoke associated with the fires on the East and West Coasts. The wide swath of smoke indicated by HMS in the North-Central Plains is obscured by clouds and thus is not evident in today’s true color or AOD imagery. Below on the left is today’s MODIS Aqua true color image from the USA 1 region, which shows isolated smoke plumes from the Humboldt and Whiskey fires in northern California and the Elkhorn 2 fire in Nevada. These fires don’t appear to be seriously impacting PM2.5 air quality at the surface today. Code Orange ozone readings are widespread across southern and central California this afternoon, however.
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There is a cold front draped across the Ohio River Valley this evening that is moving steadily to the southeast. Air quality is good in the Great Lakes region behind the cold front, while there are scattered Code Orange and Yellow conditions along the East Coast ahead of the front. Today’s Aqua true color image overlaid with the 21 UTC hourly AQI readings (below) illustrates the distribution of air quality conditions associated with the progressing frontal passage.
Smoke from the South 1 and Evans Road fires in eastern North Carolina are contributing to the elevated PM2.5 conditions in the Mid-Atlantic today. Most monitors in the region have been fluctuating between Code Yellow and Orange conditions, but the Hamptons Road monitor in southeastern Virginia recorded Unhealthy PM2.5 levels in the 20 UTC hour. Wakefield, VA (KAKQ) and Ashoskie, NC (KASJ) have been reporting visible smoke on the ground for several hours this evening. The good news is that much of the smoke is flowing east out over the Atlantic and not recirculating around the Mid-Atlantic region. The smoke plumes along the North Carolina coast are evident among the clouds and sunglint in today’s Aqua true color image (below left). The corresponding GASP AOD animation (below right) shows how plumes of elevated AOD associated with smoke from the fires have been flowing out over the Atlantic Ocean today. Westerly winds associated with an upper level low pressure system over southern Ontario will continue to push smoke from the fires offshore on Tuesday.
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