| 1996 Aug 28 09:24 UT |
This image was aquired by NOAA 14 at 09:24 UT over the western U.S.
This was a night pass with partly clear conditions.
Map of the pass
Channel 3 view of the data
Black areas are clouds.
Washington and Oregon are too cloudy to see much on this satellite pass.
Idaho is partly clouded and also doesn't show much. Utah has only
minor fire activity visible. Nevada and Wyoming show numerous scattered
small fires.
First start with the same image as above of
Southern California, Channel 3 View (346 Kb).
The southeastern part of this view is generally brighter.
Some nice examples of exceptions to the elevation/brightness relation
are immediately apparent: the bightest large area in the southern most
part of this image is the Salton Sea. It's water is warm which makes it
appear bright. The land around it is not much higher but appears less
bright. The reason is that the body of water cools more slowly than
land. The darker strip pointing from the southern border toward the east
side of the Salton Sea is the Sand Hills, which cool even faster so are
darker. At the center of the north edge of the image is seen the dark
area of the southern end of the Sierra Nevada range. These are high and
cooler than areas around them. Between 36 and 36 degrees north latitude,
just west of the border, are seen several bright areas with darker centers.
The eastmost one is Death Valley. The valley floor is made of material
which looses heat faster than the more solid valley sides.
This effect is even more apparent in the Owens Valley which borders the
Sierras on the east.
The topography of this area may be explore in more detail using a
The four corners area
Channel 3 View (256 Kb)
shows a lot of structure from the complex drainage areas as seen on a
shaded relief map.
The map and the image are the same scale and by bring up a second browser
window the two may be compared. Time does not permit a discussion of
the many visible features but two items on the image will be pointed out.
The Grand Canyon area
Channel 3 View (350 Kb) has a few scattered clouds (black) but
shows that the temperature increases in the inner depths.
A shaded relief map to the same
scale helps interpret the image.
Northern California
The fire in northern California is still visible.
The fires near Yosemite also still burn.
The daily eastward drift of the satellite orbit is giving increasingly
poor coverage of California from our location here in the east.
Fires in mountainous areas may be partially block from view.
Other factors also reduce sensitivity, such as the longer viewing
distance through the atmosphere.
Latest news from Yosemite
Shaded relief map of northern California
Southern California
The fires near Yosemite visible on the northern California image above
are seen near the top of this image.
Two tiny spots that may be possible fires are visible at about 34.5N
and 118.5W. If real these would be near Castaic Lake State Recreation
area. A daytime view showing smoke would help verify these spots.
Shaded relief map of southern California
Nevada
The northern Nevada fires appear a bit more numerous then in
last night's view. This may partially be due to last night's
scattered clouds block some fires from view, but some new fires
are visible.
Shaded relief map of Nevada
Wyoming
The grass fires southwest of the Bighorn Mountains are still apparent.
Some changes from
last night's view (channel 3) are seen. The small fire on the east
side of the Bighorns is south of Sheridan and west of the small town
of Story.
Shaded relief map of Wyoming
A reference daytime color composite view of Wyoming for 1996 Jul 8 14:42 UT
(small JPEG),
(large GIF)
A few night views of non-fire areas
These views are from NOAA AVHRR channel 3 which is sensitive to
temperature differences (and partially reflected infrared but at
night only thermal emissions are picked up). Warmer areas glow
more brightly in this channel, colder areas appear dark. Quite
a few topographic features are visible in this channel. The land is
almost depicted as elevations, high (and cold) is dark, low (and warm)
is bright. This holds fairly well but not entirely as is shown in
the first view discussed below.
shaded relief map of southern California at the same scale.
First, the bright spot in New Mexico (the state on the southeast) is very
likely a large cooling pond of the Four Corners Power Plant, not a fire.
Second, a fire scar is visible as a dark area on Mesa Verda. This fire
was seen on
the
channel 3 view of the pass of
1996 Aug 19 09:22 UT,
on also on the
channel 3 view of the pass of
1996 Aug 20 09:10 UT.
