NM Border Air Quality Blog

Nov. 26 - (LOW WIND EVENT) Another cold day. LC airport lows were around 25 and will probably be lower Saturday morning. I don't have the low at the campus station but will post it as soon as I get it. (update: low of 20F) Clear skies prevailed today as viewed from the MODIS afternoon pass. Snowfall in northern NM is clear in the image with some snow across the Cibola National Forest, southern Navajo Reservation, and higher elevations around the Gallup/Grants area.

Another evening low wind, high particulate matter event in Sunland Park and surroudings. The event peaked at 6pm with hourly PM10 at 512 and PM2.5 at 162 ug/m3 as shown in the plot below. Winds were in the 1 m/s range at the time.

Based on the preliminary data from the website this is probably not a NAAQS exceedance but is a significant high particulate matter event. Anthony also is showing the same pattern at about the same time but at lower concentrations. The EPA current PM2.5 status shows this in the map.

 

The EPA map highlights the whole southcentral area with moderate AQI.  The forecast for Saturday is better with green conditions

 

The NWS forecast for Sunday is still calling for winds in the 26 to 29 mph range with gusts up to 40 mph in the border area.