NM Border Air Quality Blog

Dec. 4 - Overall nice warm day but hazy in the afternoon. Day started off calm but winds picked up in Las Cruces in the afternoon. Can see a change in airmass starting around 6 pm with an increase in dewpoint temperatures going from near zero F to the lower 20s F. The forecast is calling for a backdoor cold front to move into the area this evening cooling us down a bit. Most of the day we were covered in high clouds so that probably excludes the use of satellite based aerosol optical depth.

Here are the hourly data from the NMED AQB sites as of 11 pm. The Deming airport PM10 peaked at around 70 µg/m3 this evening bu the winds speeds were not high. This sort of jives of what I saw this afternoon from the haze.

 

Then Las Cruces east mesa (Holman Road) showed afternoon peak PM10 of around 110 µg/m3. This matches what I saw this afternoon.

 

Then Sunland Park City Yard shows a different story. The evening shows increasing winds and PM10 but not PM2.5.

 

and then Santa Teresa border crossing shows a similar pattern in the wind but not as strong.