Smoke from Mexico a problem this year?

[Mike Johnson]

I was just wondering if anyone in the Gulf area or Southern Plains
has noticed any smoke (haze) this year. I found a NASA sat. image
showing large amounts of smoke moving northward from
Mexico and Central America towards the US.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHa...p3?img_id=12816

I remember chasers talking about a situation several
years ago where the haze was so bad, towers or storms
30 miles+ could not be seen.

Mike

 

[Shane Adams]

I noticed a little haze on April 10 in Kansas, but nothing like what chasers had to deal with in central OK on May 8-9, 2003.

 

[Susan Strom]

I remember chasers talking about a situation several years ago where the haze was so bad, towers or storms 30 miles+ could not be seen.

There was nothing like the smoke that came into TX in 1998. That year the smoke crept all the way up to Ardmore, OK.

One day I was chasing in the late afternoon near Henrietta, TX just south of the Red River Valley. The whole area was warned on but all I could see was thick white murk that looked like San Francisco fog. Visibility was bad at ground level but looking up I could see the towers. All of a sudden I saw black dots falling from the sky. "What the heck?" I thought. I got closer to make out what they were - skydivers jumping during a tornado warning!

That year, even when the forecast called for TX, I had much better luck points north of OKC where the air was clearer.