Thread by @NWSTucson

Wow....where is the high elevation smoke moving into the Western United States from? The smoke is the hazy slow moving mass moving in from the W/NW This will be a thread explaining what is happening. #azwx #smoke #wildfires2022Russia

This is an image from April 19th, 2022 of large wildfires/other fires from Siberia/Russia. The red dots show hot spots, with at least one large wildfire on the left side of the image. (courtesy of Fire Info for Resource Management System). #azwx #smoke #wildfires2022Russia

Here is a zoomed in image of one of the larger fires from the same day with significant smoke production moving east. #smoke #weather

Now lets take a look at the smoke wrapped into a storm system moving across the Pacific Ocean! The smoke is the hazy area between/embedded between the two areas of clouds. The smoke becomes more diffuse as it moves into the West. #azwx #smoke #wildfires2022Russia

Some of the wildfire/fire smoke is also being transported from Mongolia/China. Another contribution is likely dust from the Gobi Desert as @jeffbeamish pointed out. Here is a picture of significant dust lofted from the Gobi Desert on 4/20/22.

Final tweet in the thread. This is a combo of the RGB Geo Color and Aerosol Optical Depth from GOES17. The brighter blues/greens/oranges show larger concentrations of aerosols, likely dust from Gobi Desert and smoke from fires in China/Mongolia/Russia. #dust #smoke #wildfires

Just kidding...1 more post! We did more digging...Is it smoke, dust, or a little of both? The answer seems both. Likely agricultural burning in China, combined with Mongolia/Russia wildfires and Gobi Desert dust. This loop shows how the aerosols tracked across the ocean.