Images
October 4, 2020 - Smoke over Texas and Louisiana
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On October 1, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of Louisiana and Texas.
Houston, Texas sits near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the west of the scene. In the east, the Mississippi River Valley divides Louisiana (west) from Mississippi. Swaths of gray smoke cover the greens and tans of the early autumn landscape of Texas and Louisiana. In a few areas, the smoke is so thick that it obscures the view of the landscape below.
The smoke that covers these states originated in the West, most likely from the fires in Colorado and Wyoming. In wider views of MODIS images for the United States, smoke can be seen stretching from Colorado, dipping south to blanket Louisiana and Texas, and arcing upward to the coast of Delaware — a transit of more than 2,000 miles (3,219 km). While no large fires had been reported in the Southeast on October 1, early autumn is a time when farmers use fire for agricultural management in that region, so some of the smoke may arise from local sources.
On October 2, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality observed on their website, “Moderate amounts of smoke from wildfires along the Rocky Mountain Front Range in Colorado and Wyoming will continue to fill in over the state behind the frontal boundary, though much of the smoke may remain aloft. Meanwhile, seasonal fires across portions of East/Southeast Texas and the Southeast U.S. may continue to contribute lighter amounts of smoke to overall particulate background levels as well. Overall, depending on the coverage and intensity of the smoke and considering the amount that may reach the surface, the daily PM2.5 AQI is forecast to reach the middle to upper end of the "Moderate" range in parts of the Houston and Victoria areas; the lower to middle end of the "Moderate" range in parts of the Austin, Beaumont-Port Arthur, Corpus Christi, Laredo, San Antonio, and Waco-Killeen areas; possibly the lower end of the "Moderate" range in parts of the Tyler-Longview area; and the upper end of the "Good" range (perhaps with an isolated low "Moderate" or two) in parts of the Amarillo, Brownsville-McAllen, and Dallas-Fort Worth areas. Additionally, slightly elevated urban fine particulate levels associated with light winds and limited vertical mixing could be enough to raise the daily PM2.5 and PM10 AQIs to the lower to middle end of the "Moderate" range in parts of the El Paso area as well, with highest concentrations in the morning and evening.”
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 10/1/2020
Resolutions:
1km (55.6 KB), 500m (213.1 KB), 250m (648.1 KB)
Bands Used:
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
On October 1, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of Louisiana and Texas.
Houston, Texas sits near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the west of the scene. In the east, the Mississippi River Valley divides Louisiana (west) from Mississippi. Swaths of gray smoke cover the greens and tans of the early autumn landscape of Texas and Louisiana. In a few areas, the smoke is so thick that it obscures the view of the landscape below.
The smoke that covers these states originated in the West, most likely from the fires in Colorado and Wyoming. In wider views of MODIS images for the United States, smoke can be seen stretching from Colorado, dipping south to blanket Louisiana and Texas, and arcing upward to the coast of Delaware — a transit of more than 2,000 miles (3,219 km). While no large fires had been reported in the Southeast on October 1, early autumn is a time when farmers use fire for agricultural management in that region, so some of the smoke may arise from local sources.
On October 2, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality observed on their website, “Moderate amounts of smoke from wildfires along the Rocky Mountain Front Range in Colorado and Wyoming will continue to fill in over the state behind the frontal boundary, though much of the smoke may remain aloft. Meanwhile, seasonal fires across portions of East/Southeast Texas and the Southeast U.S. may continue to contribute lighter amounts of smoke to overall particulate background levels as well. Overall, depending on the coverage and intensity of the smoke and considering the amount that may reach the surface, the daily PM2.5 AQI is forecast to reach the middle to upper end of the "Moderate" range in parts of the Houston and Victoria areas; the lower to middle end of the "Moderate" range in parts of the Austin, Beaumont-Port Arthur, Corpus Christi, Laredo, San Antonio, and Waco-Killeen areas; possibly the lower end of the "Moderate" range in parts of the Tyler-Longview area; and the upper end of the "Good" range (perhaps with an isolated low "Moderate" or two) in parts of the Amarillo, Brownsville-McAllen, and Dallas-Fort Worth areas. Additionally, slightly elevated urban fine particulate levels associated with light winds and limited vertical mixing could be enough to raise the daily PM2.5 and PM10 AQIs to the lower to middle end of the "Moderate" range in parts of the El Paso area as well, with highest concentrations in the morning and evening.”
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 10/1/2020
Resolutions:
1km (55.6 KB), 500m (213.1 KB), 250m (648.1 KB)
Bands Used:
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
