NM Border Air Quality Blog

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