August 13, 2009
Thick smoke in Southern California and some light extinction in Texas
Today's AQUA RGB image over California (top, left) shows a thick smoke plume over southern California, especially over Los Angeles and hovering offshore over the Pacific. This leads to strong AOD values over southern California on the AQUA AOD map (top, right). The HMS mapand the SSD fire team reports a fire burning in NW Santa Cruz county and emitting a large area of moderately dense to dense smoke into the Pacific Ocean. The smoke has moved at least 900 km away from the fire source.
The HMS map also shows thin smoke over the Ohio Valley, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi Valley, Southern Ontario and Quebec. The National Interagency Fire Center reports four new large fires: one each in Louisiana and Utah and two in California.
The AOD map also shows strong light extinction over Texas where the ozone levels (bottom, left) reached "unhealthy for sensitive groups". "Unhealthy" air conditions are reported in Southern California. Today's EPA Airnow's PM2.5 map (bottom, right) shows at the most, "unhealthy for sensitive groups" condition at the Pennsylvania-Ohio border.
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