Past IEM Features tagged: smoke

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Summer Visibility Streaks

29 Jun 2023 05:30 AM
Wednesday was another day of thick smoke over much of the state with conditions again the worst over eastern Iowa. One metric to assess the smoke is surface visibility reports from the airport weather stations. The Cedar Rapids station reported visibility at or below 2 miles starting Tuesday morning and lasted until Wednesday evening making for a streak lasting just over 37 hours. The featured chart presents IEM computed streaks of the site having a visibility of 2 miles or below for at least 16 hours during the summer months. No other streak is to be found lasting even 24 hours, so this current event is very exceptional. Such streaks are much more common during the cold season when low clouds and fog can persist for long periods of time due to limited heating and mixing of the lower atmosphere.

Voting:
Good: 9
Bad: 0

Tags:   smoke  


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Day of Smoke

28 Jun 2023 05:30 AM
Outside of the ongoing drought, the biggest weather story this warm season has been the persistent Canadian wildfire smoke that has frequented the state. Yesterday was about as bad as it has gotten so far this year over Eastern Iowa with very poor air quality at the surface. The featured movie is a daytime lapse from the KCRG-TV webcam near the Amana Colonies showing the persistent and at times very thick haze. More of the same is forecast on Wednesday, especially over eastern Iowa again.

Voting:
Good: 9
Bad: 2

Tags:   video   smoke  

Smoke Swirls

11 Jul 2015 05:48 AM
Visible satellite imagery on Friday morning captured swirls in the smoke plume from Canada. These swirls are always present in the atmosphere, but we often can not see them in the cloud formations. Much like how people use tracers in a wind tunnel to see how the air is flowing, the smoke plume was doing a similar thing in the atmosphere.

Voting:
Good: 25
Bad: 11
Abstain: 5

Tags:   satellite   smoke  

Canadian Fires

30 Jun 2015 05:43 AM
The smoke from Canadian wild fires was very noticeable in Iowa on Monday and made for a red colored sun. The featured map is visible satellite imagery with the smoke plume highlighted coming south out of Canada and into Iowa. Our upper air flow pattern looks to maintain this transport, so we may be seeing more of the smoke.

Voting:
Good: 16
Bad: 6
Abstain: 3

Tags:   smoke  


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Des Moines NEXRAD animation between 2 and 3 PM on 6 Mar 2005

A Wild Sunday

07 Mar 2005 12:04 AM
After complaints of March being boring, Mother Nature is working overtime this week to make things interesting. Sunday afternoon was very windy with record high temperatures and then a round of thunderstorms rolled through bringing lightning, small hail, and gusty winds. The highlighted animation shows the smoke plune from a large grass fire in Pottawattamie County. The strong winds and deep mixed surface layer quickly moved this smoke upwards to a reported 15,000 feet. The weather this week looks to be a bumpy ride, so hold on tight!

Voting:
Good: 15
Bad: 6

Tags:   smoke   nexrad