Canadian wildfire smoke across the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes

By Scott Bachmeier • 7 July 2019

GOES-16 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 (GOES-East) True Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images from the AOS site (above) showed the signature of dense smoke from Canadian wildfires that was being transported southward across parts of the Upper Midwest on 06 July 2019. While much of the smoke remained aloft, some of it was reaching the surface and restricting the visibility at locations such as International Falls, Baudette and Thief River Falls in northern Minnesota and Fargo in eastern North Dakota.

On the following day, the smoke settled farther southward over Wisconsin and Michigan (below). Much of the smoke again remained aloft, but continued to persist within the boundary layer at Baudette and International Falls — and it did briefly restrict the surface visibility at Green Bay in northeastern Wisconsin.

GOES-16 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

===== 08 July Update =====

GOES-16 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

On 08 July the smoke covered much of the Great Lakes and parts of adjacent states (above).

===== 09 July Update =====

GOES-16 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

On 09 July, a gradual decreasing trend in the areal coverage and density of smoke over the Great Lakes was seen (above). A Suomi NPP VIIRS True Color RGB image acquired and processed by the CIMSS/SSEC Direct Broadcast ground station (below) showed that some of the smoke had moved over the Mid-Atlantic states and out across the adjacent offshore waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Suomi NPP VIIRS True Color RGB image [click to enlarge]

Categories: Air quality, GOES-16, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Suomi NPP, VIIRS

CIMSS Satellite Blog

CIMSS Satellite Blog

Canadian wildfire smoke across the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes