Wednesday, June 8, 2011

June 8

We're expecting westsouthwest (WSW) winds today across our region. Based on this morning's 12UTC RUC run the winds look to be highest in the Bootheel and interior Chihuahua.
The AQI forecast shows good air quality in the south but a region of moderate centered around Albuquerque today.
Below are forward Hysplit trajectories from the Horseshoe 2 Fire for today (6am) through tomorrow morning (3 am). The model generated forward trajectories from the fire at starting heights of 500m (green), 1km (blue), and 3km (red). From satellite most of the plume will likely appear to be following the red lines as the smoke is lofted high in the atmosphere but there will also be smoke emitted at the lower heights.
I see no relief in the form of precipitation for the next 5 days based on the NWS QPF product. 
At 2:25 pm MDT the Horseshoe 2 Fire smoke plume was almost directly over Lordsburg based on the MODIS Aqua image below . Right over the fire it looks like some pyrocumulus clouds were forming.
Here is a view of the two large smoke plumes just before sunset at 7 pm. The green arrows indicate 500 mb (about 14,000 feet above ground) winds and in general follow the plume direction. Based on the satellite based lidar, Calipso, these smoke plumes are high with tops reaching 5 kilometers above mean sea level.
From news accounts we are expecting rolling black outs starting on Friday due to the fire burning over power transmission lines in Arizona.

No comments:

Post a Comment