DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0000Z December 18, 2007
NOTE...As of this afternoon, GOES-12 has once again been brought back on line as the official eastern geostationary satellite replacing GOES-10. However, some navigational problems were still noted during the afternoon which caused some difficulties in analyzing fires/smoke. Florida: Several fires over the east central portion of the Florida peninsula were emitting relatively thin smoke plumes which spread in a south-southwesterly direction. In particular, a very long plume originated from a fire in Indian River County and moved quickly southward across Lake Okeechobee and into far western Palm Beach County. Farther to the north across the Florida panhandle at least a handful of fires were producing long narrow smoke plumes which also moved to the south-southwest and eventually over the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana: Fires concentrated across south central and southeastern Louisiana were responsible for relatively small bursts of smoke which did combine to form somewhat larger batches of relatively thin smoke which moved to the west-northwest. JS