Display Fire and Smoke Outlooks in RealEarth
With Spring comes the beginning of fire season for the United States, and with the help of satellite data, model output can provide information about future smoke and fires.
Fire weather outlooks are available from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center (SPC). These are qualitative categorical outlooks similar to those the SPC issues for severe weather. Also provided by NOAA is the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) Smoke model, which forecasts smoke transport using a variety of inputs including radiances from GOES, MODIS, and VIIRS.
Both of these products are available in RealEarth, making it handy to gauge smoke and fire events across the United States and plan for future smoke and fire events. There are currently ‘elevated’ and ‘critical’ areas of New Mexico designated by the fire weather categorical outlooks. RealEarth is also available for Android and iOS.