Wildfires push smoke into Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona

Wildfire smoke map

Strong winds out of the east and northeast Friday night in portions of New Mexico and southern Colorado pushed smoke from the West Fork, Silver, and Jaroso Fires in new directions, west of the fires. The maps below show the distribution of wildfire smoke as of 9:24 a.m. MDT, today, June 28, 2013.

Wildfire smoke map Wildfire smoke map

If you want a LOT more information about the smoke and dust in the air, the information below from the National Weather Service is right up your alley.

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY THROUGH 1500Z June 28, 2013

Desert Southwest: Very dense/convectively dense smoke from the West Fork Complex in CO covers a large portion of SE UT, SW CO and far NC AZ. This area appears to be directly under the High pressure and is expanding outward in an anticyclonic spiral with UT/AZ smoke moving W and CO smoke moving E and SE. Moderate smoke covers NW NM at this time as well.

The Silver Wildfire in NM as an attached dense plume moving due West, but last night’s very dense smoke can be seen along a long range covering S NV, SW AZ and much of Sonora, MX. Moderate density smoke covers Las Vegas, NV while Phoenix area is beginning to clear out before today’s plume moves in.

Upper Great Plains through SW Great Lakes: A narrow line of very thin smoke that was pulled south of the main airmass boundary across Canada and is rapidly shearing/thinning out along a very strong jet streak. This area can be seen only in Goes-West early this morning at high sun angles; it is seen from S Alberta and S Saskatchewan over Central ND, NE SD, SW MN, IA, N IL, S WI into N IN and over Lake Michigan into the LP of MI.

Canada/Alaska: Smoke nearly covers the entire Boreal region of AK and Canada from numerous large wildfires across AK, NW Territories, N Manitoba into Quebec. This smoke remains north of large airmass boundary denoted by cloud cover/cyclonic from the Denali Range of the Alaskan Rockies across the Province/Territory boarders, down SE across C Manitoba into the Great Lakes to the southern tip of James Bay and across Quebec coastal region and across N Newfoundland.

Moderately dense smoke can be seen moving E across the Labrador Strait and south of the tip of Greenland over to Iceland.

Moderate with very dense pockets near active fires can be seen across central Quebec from La Grande Riviere Reservior to SW Lake Melville in Labrador, most dense near Lac Opiscoteo.

Dense to very dense pocket of smoke from yesterday’s output of the fire along the Eastmain River is moving due W across NC Ontario from the Hudson Bay/James Bay intersection/point south to the same latitude as the southern tip of James Bay (north of the eastern tip of Lake Superior).

A moderately dense smoke area straddles the Providence/Territory boundary from N Alberta to around Churchill, MB. The smoke extends about 1 degree north and south of this line and is moving ESE on the eastern side while remaining relatively stationary on near Lake Athabasca.

Dense smoke directly under the shortwave ridge affecting northern Yukon and NW Territories (W of Great Bear Lake). Moderately dense smoke covers extends much further east almost to the far NW Nunavut boundary and Southern Victoria Island. This is moving generally E and SE. On the other side of the ridge two streams of moderate smoke from AK fires feed the large area described above, one arm from the Beaver Log Lakes, Moving River, Dead Fish Lake Complexes along the northern slopes of the Alaskan Range… the other arm a bit further N and W from the Shaktoolike River Fires. These arms meet up over the E Brooks Range and NE AK.

Gallina

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Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.