NM Border Air Quality Blog

Jan. 7 - Low wind, high PM event - Turned out to be a very nice day before the weather changes. It warmed up 63F at both the Las Cruces and Deming airports.  We will see a storm system come in later tonight and Saturday as predicted. The Albuquerque forecast office provided this great graphic showing the path of the upper low through Saturday.

 

Air quality was in the good range early in the day but low wind, high PM in the evening. Particulates were low up till 4 pm as you can see from the Sunland Park City Yard station. PM10 peaked at 6 pm with a concentration of 300 µg/m3 and PM2.5 of 76 µg/m3.

 

We also see a similar pattern at the NMED Anthony station.

Column aerosol was low except for a little above normal along the Rio Grande in the Rincon Valley in Sierra County.

 

It was a great day for contrails.

Looking at the Deming profiler we can see the entrance of the upper low with the change in wind directions in the afternoon.