March 23, 2016 dust episode

Following the March 22 high wind day, the next day proved to be a potent dust day along the border.

Based on a summary of maximum wind gusts from the National Weather Service this event was similar in strength.

Dust source areas (pink color in map) in southwest New Mexico and Mexico showed up in today's 1:44pm MDT VIIRS dust product image from NASA SPoRT.

Some of the same dust source areas on the previous day were also emitting today. However on this day the wind direction was from the northwest pushing dust toward the southeast.

March 22, 2016 dust event

A strong synoptic dust storm impacted most of the border country on March 22 and 23. High winds started early on the 22nd across the region and peaked late in the afternoon.

Traffic cameras along I-10 recorded times of near-zero visibility in the afternoon. The cameras west of Lordsburg showed episodes of blowing dust from the playa or dry lakebed.  At the peak of the dust storm at about 4:11 am MDT the mile marker 11 camera (view toward the west) looked like this.

A few minutes later at 4:14 pm visibility increased a little but still a dangerous situation

The National Weather Service summarized the peak wind gusts and part of that statement is shown below. Click on it to view it. Peak winds at the Lordsburg playa were recorded at 61 mph at 4:49 pm/ In Deming winds gusted to 46 mph at 5:13 pm.

From satellite the dust could be seen from sources in New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. Below is an animated GIF of dust plumes as seen from NOAA GOES satellite of this afternoon.

April 17 - What a day along the border! Not just another dust storm but one that lasted more than 12 hours.

At 9 am: Winds are forecasted in Las Cruces area to be in the 31 to 41 mph range in the afternoon with gusts up to 55 mph. The time series plot below is based on the 13-km resolution Rapid Refresh model at a grid cell in Las Cruces for wind speed today. Winds should peak at 23 UTC.

 Below is a color shaded wind speed forecast for 22 UTC today.

 

As of 7pm, this dust storm is a whopper. I-10 has been close since noon and the winds and dust plumes have not let up. Below a NMDOT truck blocks the entrance to the frontage road that runs along I-10 near the Las Cruces Airport. A State Police cruiser blocked the entrance to I-10. I talked to the NMDOT worker who was directing traffic here and he said that there are locations down the road that have zero visibility. He also mentioned he exchanged words with some disgruntled travelers from 'back east' who didn't understand the dangers of driving along this stretch of highway. State Police had ultimate say on when the road will open up.

Hundreds of trucks and cars line both I-10 and side-roads as they wait for the interstate to open.

Below is another videocast of today's dust storm as seen from GOES, courtesy of NCAR RAP webpage.

 

Another look at the storm from the GOES sounder longwave difference product provides some more information. As I mention in the videocast, a distinct New Mexico hot spot is clear in the looping images.

Below is a view southwestward from the Las Cruces Airport at 5 pm. As I expected this area is not a likely source area for the dust. A few construction areas on the way to the airport were causing some localized dust but not a lot.

A quick look at surface particulate matter concentrations shows very high concentrations of PM10 in Deming in the afternoon. Peak hourly PM10 nearly hit 3000 ug/m3 at 1 pm and again at 4 pm .

Below are the PM10 concentrations measured at the Las Cruces West Mesa station today. Peak PM10 was nearly 3000 ug/m3 this afternoon.What is interesting is that the dust started to increase about the same time as in Deming, with Deming reaching the peak earlier.

 

We installed the CL31 ceilometer on top of the monitoring trailer so we'll be showing some products from that soon. I just received the unit on Monday after being used in a year-long project in Sparks, NV for investigating high PM2.5 exceedances. I glanced at the backscatter profiles at around 6:30 pm and it was showing most of the dust confined to a layer about 800 meters thick. As expected the highest levels were near the ground.

By the end of the day, particulate concentrations decreased to pre-storm levels. Below is a summary of hourly PM10 across the New Mexico monitoring stations. The Las Cruces Holman station recorded the highest hourly value of 3977 ug/m3. The 24-hour average PM10 at that location was 557 ug/m3, which is about 3.7 times the EPA standard.

Peak hourly PM2.5 were nearly 200 ug/m3 across all stations in southern NM.  Highest 24-hour averaged PM2.5 was at the Sunland Park Desert View Elementary School station with a 90 ug/m3 concentration.

March 25 -

We saw above average temperatures and high clouds today thoughout the border region.  Several high temperature records were broken today.  The high at NMSU was 89F and the record was 87 recorded in 1971. Keep in mind that this will registered on March 26 since we take measurements at 7:30 am and officially the measurement will be taken tomorrow.

Today's AQI forecast was for good (green) air quality. We have been busy preparing for a measurement study in the Columbus/Palomas area to look at fugitive dust around the cattle holding facilities at the border. Below is a Google Earth map of the Palomas study sites. Most of the sites surround the cattle facility with one WSW of the town and two on the US site north of Palomas.

 

On Monday we will be installing the two E-BAM PM10 monitors and the PQ100 PM10 FRM. On Tuesday we plan on installing the Minivol PM10 samplers on power poles.

Dec. 8 -

Yesterday's high temperature was 39 degrees F which was 21 degrees below the average. It wasn't  a record as the coldest high was observed in 1992 with a 36F.  Another cool start to the day with the low at NMSU of 16F, which tied the record set in 2005. The low at the Las Cruces airport looks to be 18F at 7 am. Deming cooled to 17F this morning.

I see a thin haze layer looking west from Las Cruces this morning. Web cams aren't picking them up but still noticeable. An area of moderated air quality shows up in the Airnow AQI forecast for today for PM2.5.

 

This is pecan harvesting season but the snow has slowed it down over the past few days while the soil dries out. Soil moisture is high and you'll get muddy feet taking measurements at our Coop station on campus. A few high clouds covered our skies today and it was warm compared to the past few days.

 

I loaded the ceilometer up for its trip to Reno. It's going to be used in a PM2.5 study to help understand high concentration days during the winter. Apparently they had 4 exceedances of the PM2.5 standard last year after snow days.

Dec. 7 -

Yesterday's high and today's low both set daily records at the NMSU weather station.

   Yesterday's high                     Today's low

High(F)  Normal Record Low      Low(F)  Normal  Record Low

 31        60     33 (1992)       11      29      17 (1959)

The Airnow AQI forecast for the border region includes an area of moderate air quality in the Paso del Norte and El Pso county. This is due to PM2.5.

Because of the cold air mass and snow cover, we have a substantial temperature inversion over the area based on Monday night's sounding. Sounding courtesy of NCAR RAP website.

I will be at the Border 2012 Rural Task Force meeting today in Columbus giving an update on the border health project. I will again post in the evening with a summary of the day.

Back from the meeting and four hours of driving. I was glad that the I-10 border checkpoint outbound was close and saved me a few minutes. Nice steam plume from the Luna Energy Facility as I drove by on the way near Deming. Lots of good talks and discussions about border environmental issues from air, health, water, sanitation, to ecology.

As I type this it is 24F just before midnight.  The image below shows the snow cover today from MODIS. You can see where snow is either very light or where it didn't accumulate. The green icons show locations of our new study climate stations. Click on it to show the Aqua and Terra images switch back and forth.

Dec. 6 -

Very cold temperatures and snow for the region -It was great to get another day of precipitation so soon after the first one. Below is a look at the Organ Mountains this morning from the kitchen window.

Snowfall observed in the CoCoRaHS network ranged from a trace amount in Cliff to 8 inches near Radium Springs. Below shows the CoCoRaHS snow depth observations in Las Cruces. Keep up the good work.

Liquid precipitation measured as melted snow and/or rain ranged from 0.75 inches in SSW Deming to a trace in NNW Silver City. As the AHPS product shows below, precipitation likely missed the Bootheel region and far western NM. The Antelope Wells Coop station reported no precipitation today.

 

Very low morning temperatures were scattered across the region. The Cooperative station at the Jornada Experimental Range measured a low of -1F this morning, breaking their record for this day by four degrees. The lows measured at the airports ranged from 5F at Las Cruces, 8F at Deming, and 18F in El Paso.  Antelope Wells had the warmest start at 23F. Below is the high from yesterday and the low this morning at NMSU. Today's low was a record for this day at this weather station.

   Yesterday           Today

High(F)  Normal     Low(F)  Normal  Record Low

 39        61        10      29      14 (1959)

With this snow our monthly precipitation stands at 0.63 inches at NMSU.  The 30-year average for the month of December is 0.72 inches. We are not expecting any more precipitation in the region at least for the next 5 days as the QPF plot shows.

 

We have clear skies tonight and recipe for the temperatures to drop into the teens and possibly the single digits along the border. At 10pm it is 18F at the Las Cruces airport and 21F at my house.

Feb. 3 - New record lows for our area. The NMSU Coop station bottomed out at -5F this morning. That's the 4th coldest in the record since 1892. Here are the coldest 5 days since 1892 showing the daily low temperatures in degree Fahrenheit.
 Low   date
 -10  1/11/1962
 -8   1/8/1913
 -6   1/29/1948
 -5   2/3/2011 (TODAY)
 -4   11/29/1976

The record for today February 3 is 9F (set in 1956 and 1939) so we've set the record low for this day.The Las Cruces Airport only managed a zero that showed we had a cold pool of air in the Mesilla Valley this morning. A view of the Organ Mountains this afternoon showed some but not a whole lot of snow on the peaks.

No story in air quality today as all stations showed low concentrations. Particulates in Sunland Park were low during the day in the 10-20 µg/m3 range.

Feb. 2 - The big story today is the cold temperature and snow! Our low temperature at the NMSU Coop station was 8F. There were 2.0 inches of snowfall and 0.08 inches of precipitation from that. I had 4 inches on the ground and 0.16 inches of water where I live by Sonoma Ranch. Photo below was taken there at 7:30 this morning. It was a powdery snow with the snow depth to water ratio at 25 or a snow density of 4 percent.

 

Based on the CoCoRaHS observation network snowfall in Dona Ana County varied from 0.4 to 4.0 inches and water content from trace to 0.63 inches. The map below is the snowfall for today in Dona Ana County from the CoCoRaHS network website.

Air quality was good in most areas except for Anthony and Deming. Peak PM10 reached 233 µg/m3 at 11 am with PM2.5 at 6 µg/m3. 

In Deming we still have high winds and PM10 remains high. Peak PM10 was 153 µg/m3 at 6 am. So far at 2 pm the average PM10 there is 104 µg/m3.

Overnight the lows are to be in the below or near zero range. The map below shows a forecasted extent of the cold on Thursday morning at 11 UTC (4 am). Indigo and dark blue are temperatures below zero.

 

Winds are expected to light over Dona Ana County but in the range of 6 to 8 m/s across the rest of the region. The map below shows surface winds at 11 UTC (4 am)

 

Here is a view of the storm from NMSU campus looking west