NM Border Air Quality Blog

Nov. 28 - HIGH WIND DUST EVENT - We're seeing windblown dust just as forecasted in the border area. The 3 pm visible GOES Satellite image showed extensive dust plumes from both Mexico and New Mexico. Winds at the LC airport were from the SW at 35 mph gusting to 46 mph at 12:56 pm MST.

 

Surface weather map shows the event with visibilities

 

The 1 pm PM10 concentration at the Sunland Park City Yard was 2953 ug/m3 and PM2.5 was 180 ug/m3 with hourly averaged winds of 11 m/s and 19 m/s gusts. The air quality is in the Hazardous category (AQI > 500).

The plot below shows the particulates at the NMED Anthony Elementary monitoring site.

 

A view from my office window looking out toward the west shows this dust in Las Cruces

 

TCEQ has provided a nice summary of the Nov. 28 dust event based on their monitoring data and an animation of GOES images.

http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/assets/public/compliance/monops/air/sigevents/10/101128ani-goes-txw.html