July 24, 2012
Fires continue in Canada and central U.S.,Large Saharan Dust Plume almost reaching Southeast Region
The first image below, courtesy NOAA HMS, shows the fire locations across the United States. The red dots correspond to active fires, and the grey areas are plumes. As reported earlier this week, there are large fires in the Plains region today. These fires have been producing a large amount of smoke in the center of the country. Also, the smoke from Canadian fires has still been moving downward into the country these past few weeks. The next animation, courtesy EPA AIRNOW, shows the AQI values for the country for today. There has been moderate values near most of the wildfire sites in the central part of the country. As discussed yesterday, there has been an increase in ozone in the Great Lakes Region, that is still in the unhealthy stages, even today. (Specifically Code Red in Southern Michigan).
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The first animation below, courtesy GASP, shows the AOD across the nation for today. Notice the increased values in Canada and the central Plains region for wildfires. Also, notice the large plume of smoke heading towards the Southeast region of the country. This has been identified as Saharan Dust. From Alex's post yesterday, you can see the LANCE AOD trail leaving the western portion of Africa and making the journey towards the U.S. The second image, courtesy NASA Earth Observatory is a color-coded map, made from data collected by the Ozone Mapper Profiler Suite (OMPS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite. It shows relative aerosol concentrations across the Atlantic Ocean on July 21, 2012. Lower concentrations appear in yellow, and greater concentrations appear in dark orange-brown. Areas in grey represent data that have been screened out due to sunglint (reflection of sunlight) or other factors. Another educational article from the The Miami Herald describes the gradual onset of the dust in the next few days.
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