Wildfire activity was beginning to increase across parts of Quebec, Canada on 24 June 2009 — and AWIPS images of the MODIS 3.7 µm shortwave IR channel (above) revealed a number of large fire “hot spots” (red to yellow color enhancement) that were increasing in areal coverage between 16:29 UTC and 18:14... Read More
Fires in coastal northeastern South Carolina, (news links here and here, for example) near Myrtle Beach, have destroyed 70+ houses and forced residents to evacuate. A true-color MODIS image that shows the distinct smoke plume is available here.The fires were visible from satellite in both the visible channels, as shown above,... Read More
A large outbreak of wildfires occurred across parts of Texas and Oklahoma on 09 April 2009. GOES-13 visible images (above) showed several very large smoke plumes drifting eastward across far northern Texas and far southern Oklahoma during the afternoon hours. These fires... Read More
Strong winds were producing plumes of blowing dust across parts of southeastern New Mexico and the Texas panhandle region on 14 December 2008 — this blowing dust was reducing surface visibility to 1 mile at Lubbock, Texas (station identifier KLBB). AWIPS images of the MODIS visible, “cirrus detection”, 3.7 µm shortwave IR,... Read More
