August 20, 2009
Still smoke over the North West, light extinction over the Texas-Mexican border and over the Northwestern Atlantic
According to the TERRA AOD map (top, left), strong light extinction values are still shown over Washington. The TERRA RGB image over the area (top, right) clearly shows a smoke plume over Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. This is also reported by the SSD fire team, the HMS map and NASA earth observatory
The HMS map also shows a patch of thin smoke over Arizona. This area of detached smoke is partly due to fires burning over Southwestern Utah. The National Interagency Fire Center reports, in deed, two new large fires, one each in Utah and New Mexico.
The SSD fire team reports a plume of unknown origin and composition over the Northwestern Atlantic, offshore from New England. This leads to some stronger AOD values and the MODIS RGB image shows a mix of clouds and haze over the area.
Higher AOD values can also be seen over the Mexican-Texas border (see RGB image: bottom, left)
The EPA AIRNow's PM2.5 map (bottom, right) shows, at the most, "unhealthy for sensitive groups" air conditions over Southern California. This is also the case for the ozone levels.
Finally, according to the Maryland weather blog,
Hurricane Bill falls back to Category 3 status (still a "major" storm).
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