U.S. Air Quality

Smoke and more smoke. Major smoke plume crossing the north of US.

The US is getting clobbered by smoke from west to east. The fires in Idaho have flared up again and a major smoke plume can be strikingly seen in the MODIS Terra RGB image (left) today and in the MODIS Aqua RGB image (right). Clearly, where lidars can be used and see through the clouds from the remnants of hurricane Isaac, they should be turned on.

The Idaho fires are shown at high resolution (below, left) and the Northern California fires (below, right). The Mustang Complex fire is only 16% contained and is 221,000 acres, the Halstead fire is 7% contained and is 131,000 acres, and the older Trinity Ridge fire is at 143,000 acres and is 43% contained. Idaho clearly will be a major smoke producer for weeks to come.

In Nebraska (left panel below), the Wellnitz and Region 23 fires that created the 11-12km plume over the weekend are still burning but are 75% contained, Over 150,000 acres have burned making this a major fire in any region of the country. Tim Schmit and his colleagues at CIMSS have put the new GOES-14 sensor in rapid scan and the loop of the fire in the visible (left panel in the link) and short wave IR (right panel in the link) shows off the rapid scan capability of GOES-14. On the right panel below, the Williams fire burning in the San Gabriel Mountains of the Los Angeles Basin is 15% contained and is shown in MODIS's RGB.