NM Border Air Quality Blog

June 5

It was a hot and sunny day. High of 98F and dewpoint temperatures in the low 40F degree range.

The AQI forecast was for good air quality in southern New Mexico.

Wildfire smoke plumes were transported north today as the GOES visible image below shows. This image is from 7:00 pm this evening. The moist airmass traveled far into western NM today. I would like to see a lot more of this.

Most of the convection occurred to the north and east and a few scattered thunderstorms dotted our region by the late afternoon.

Below is a snapshot from 10:11 pm tonight showing radar reflectivity and areas of rain north of I-10. The highest reflectivities are colored yellow to red.

I observed some thunderstorm outflow winds at 8:30pm from the east in Las Cruces. A brief rain shower occurred on the NMSU campus was from 11:42 to 11:50pm. Lots of lightning in this storm. I'll post some pictures tomorrow. I recorded 0.18" at my house in Las Cruces at the end of the day. The map below shows radar derived accumulated precipitation in inches just after midnight from the storm. Based on this only the Vado satellite site saw rain.

 

Nice image of smoke drifting into Colorado: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=50866