April 2, 2009
Smoke over the Gulf of Mexico and what seems to be dust over Texas
According to today’s EPA AIRNow PM2.5 map (top, left), an important concentration of ground-based monitors record “moderate” air conditions in southern California, eastern Florida and the North East coast. On another hand, the ozone levels are all “good” through out the country.
The SSD fire team at NOAA points out residual light smoke from fires in Central America stretching from the Bay of Campeche to the North central Gulf of Mexico. The HMS map (top, right) still shows numerous fires, especially in Yucatan. This leads to high GASP and MODIS TERRA AOD values (bottom left, reaching 1 at 550 nm) over the Gulf of Mexico. Although mixed with a wide spread cloud cover, the smoke plume is clearly visible on today’s MODIS TERRA RGB image (bottom, right).
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According to the 48-hour aerosol, winds and precipitation forecast (below, left), the smoke is predicted to drift northeastward inland (mostly through Florida) and over the Atlantic.
According to the OSEI team (below, right) and also pointed out by the SSD fire team, a band of dust is also moving southeast through central Texas. No sunphotometer in the region could confirm a high level of light extinction and no specific event could be seen on either GASP or MODIS images.
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