MSGID: 1:317/3 648f4658
PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08
TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08
June 18, 2023 - Wildfire Smoke over the Central United States

   Smoke
    Tweet
    Share

   Smoke from intense wildland fires in Canada billowed over the upper
   Midwest in June 2023, causing hazy skies and hazardous air quality in
   Canada and across several U.S. states.

   The image above—acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging
   Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite—shows smoke drifting
   across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North and South Dakota on June 14,
   2023. Most of the smoke blew south from Canada, where blazes continued
   to rage across several provinces. Over 400 fires were active across the
   country that day, half of which were classified as out of control,
   according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC).

   Air quality that day was especially poor in Minnesota. The skyline of
   Minneapolis was blanketed with haze, reminiscent of the skylines in
   major cities in the Northeast a week prior. At 5 p.m. local time on
   June 14, air quality monitors in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and St. Cloud
   recorded levels deemed “very unhealthy” (code purple) on the AQI scale.

   Hazy skies in the Midwest were also observed by a global network of
   ground sensors called the Aerosols Robotic Network, or AERONET, which
   is comprised of more than 500 carefully calibrated Sun photometer
   instruments that measure aerosol optical depth (AOD) around the world.
   AOD is a measure of how much light is absorbed or reflected by
   particles of dust, natural aerosols, or pollutants in the air.

   A clear blue sky would produce a very low AOD value of less than 0.05.
   An AOD reading of 3 would indicate very hazy skies that would make it
   difficult even to see the Sun. On June 14, an AERONET sensor in central
   North Dakota recorded an average AOD of 2.1, and a sensor in Madison,
   Wisconsin, recorded an average AOD of 1.2. The average AOD value on
   that day in Madison is 0.3.

   Smoke from the wildfires continued to move south and east on June 15.
   According to the National Weather Service, air quality alerts for
   Wisconsin and Minnesota were still in effect on that day.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Terra
   Date Acquired: 6/14/2023
   Resolutions:  1km (1.3 MB),
   Bands Used: 1,4,3
   Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2023-06-18
 
--- up 1 year, 15 weeks, 6 days, 21 minutes
 * Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)
SEEN-BY: 15/0 106/201 114/705 123/120 153/7715 218/700 226/30 227/114
SEEN-BY: 229/110 112 113 307 317 400 426 428 470 664 700 291/111 292/854
SEEN-BY: 298/25 305/3 317/3 320/219 396/45 5075/35
PATH: 317/3 229/426