NM Border Air Quality Blog

Feb. 19 - High winds in the evening. Today's min was 37F and the high was 76F at NMSU. The Las Cruces airport recorded 37F and 75F as the low and high today.

The AQI forecast for today called for good air quality throughout New Mexico.

However from the map below the actual AQI at 9 pm MST was in the moderate range. I can vouch for this area of moderate since I drove from Albuquerque to Las Cruces in the late afternoon to evening hours along I-25. Winds were high and gusty in Albuquerque around 4 pm with blowing dust. I continued to see blowing dust even as the sun set. The moon looked brownish instead of its usual white tonight. Just north of Socorro I noticed at a construction area on I-25 that the wind was strong enough to move one of those orange barrels into the middle of the highway and it toppled one of those blinking trailer-mounted warning lights on its side.

Here are some reports of winds today from the NWS.

Location                    Wind Gust  Time

Las Cruces airport (KLRU)    43 mph    5:11 pm

Deming airport (KDMN)        37 mph    4:53 pm

T or C airport (KTCS)        46 mph    4:53 pm

El Paso airport (KELP)       40 mph    7:51 pm

Socorro 2S (KONM)            40 mph    3:09 pm

Albuquerque airport (KABQ)   77 mph    6:19 pm


Winds were not particularly high today at the Anthony station with hourly averaged winds in the 2 to 4 m/s range in the afternoon. Particulates peaked between 5 and 7 pm along with gusts from 7 to 12 m/s.

 

and we saw a similar pattern at the Sunland Park City Yard station.

 

Winds were higher in Las Cruces than in the southern portion of Dona Ana County. The Las Cruces West Mesa station saw hourly averaged winds in the 11 m/s range with gusts over 17 m/s.

Winds at the NMED Deming station were also as high. PM10 here peaked at 4 pm with a concentration of 425 µg/m3.