June 24, 2008
Smoke in California, Moderate PM on the East, & Dust approaching
California wildfires continue to be the major headline. Smoke densely covers most of the state (UW MODIS Today; left image) and as a result local air quality is poor in this region; PM2.5 and Ozone levels reached code red today. The AOD (NOAA UMBC GASP IDEA; right image) is high in this region as well. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) website has some fire statistics related to this event. So far 181,190 acres have been consumed and 8 new fires have been reported. Refer to the MODIS Active fire map from the USDA Forest Service (USFS) Remote Sensing Applications Center.
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Meanwhile, air quality (EPA AIRNow) varies from good to moderate in the rest of the nation. The southeast has more instances of moderate air quality, which is likely due to regional haze.
Dust, visible over the Atlantic, is also approaching the U.S. Refer to the AOD image above and the NRL NAAPS map for location and dust intensity. This event was initially discussed on the blog a few days ago. We will continue to closely monitor this incident and report any impact it might have on southern states.
