April 23, 2009
Significant smoke over Texas, Oklahoma and large fire visible in South Carolina
Today’s HMS map (top, left) and the SSD fire team at NOAA show what seems to be four different smoke events over Texas/ Oklahoma, South Carolina, Florida and Colorado/ Kansas.
In Texas/ Oklahoma, remnant smoke coming from yesterday’s large fire in western New Mexico lead to strong AOD values on today’s MODIS AQUA AOD map (top, right) and possibly to some “moderate” PM values over the area (middle, left). On another hand, it’s difficult to distinguish smoke from clouds on today’s MODIS TERRA RGB image (middle, right).
In South Carolina, large fires are producing light to moderate density smoke. This leads to strong GASP AOD (bottom, left) and visible smoke drifting over the Atlantic on the TERRA RGB image. According to the New York Times, “Wildfires swept through a coastal region of South Carolina on Thursday and threatened North Myrtle Beach, destroying more than 40 homes and forcing more than 2,500 people to evacuate, state officials said.” This event is also commented by the OSEI group using NOAA-15 imagery. Let’s note this could be the reason for “moderate” PM2.5 and ozone levels (bottom, right) in the region.
West of southern Florida, a large area of smoke was seen this morning spreading westward. According to the SSD fire team, this moderate to very thick smoke is moving westward into the Gulf of Mexico. This plume leads to high GASP AOD values and “moderate” PM2.5 and ozone levels.
The last smoke event is in Colorado/Kansas. Its origin is undetermined. Some “moderate” ozone levels are seen in the same area.
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