Aug. 14 -

Afternoon clouds limited ozone production in the Paso del Norte today compared to the weekend. Peak hourly ozone concentrations were in the low 60s ppb this afternoon.

 

The air quality index forecast is calling for moderate levels (yellow) in the Paso del Norte on Wednesday.

 

The haze that has been lingering around the borderland for the past few days has moved out of the region. The haze that appears to have been a mixture of regional and long range transported haze from distant wildfires is more located to our north today. Below is the NOAA HMS smoke product showing the haze as the white areas and active fires as red dots.

 

Aug. 13 -

It's been way too long since I've posted here. In the meantime the monsoon has not been that active and precipitation has been spotty along the border. Below is a map of July precipitation percent of normal. The Red to yellow shades show areas that are below average for that month.  As you can see most oft he border area is shaded either yellow or orange. This precipitation deficit translates into dry soils that could be erodible for wind erosion.

The warm and dry conditions have also presented episodes of ozone formation in this area.

Over the past few days we've likely seen haze due to transported smoke from wildfires both from neighboring states, those in the northwest, and potentially some impacts from other continents.