Alamogordo NM
5-11-2025 1:22pm

Dust Warnings: Historic Increase in Duststorms Leads to Health Concerns in New Mexico, Texas Borderlands

With a dust storm advisory in effect for Tuesday through Thursday this week, Otero County residents and those in the New Mexico and Texas Borderlands communities are advised to be cautious.​

El Pass had the ninth-most polluted air among major U.S. cities in 2024, according to one global report released Tuesday and that was before a series of intense dust storms last week created some of the worst air quality conditions ever recorded in the city. The Borderlands area of Texas and New Mexico to include Alamogordo and Otero County is in the same category per university research analyst, as reported by NewMexicoConservativeNews.com. 

The historically intense dust storms El Paso, Southern New Mexico and the Borderlands area has experienced this spring could become the norm if record-setting heat and years-long drought persist in the borderland, according to scientists researching the cause and effects of the blowing dust and sand.

By most measures, the dusty season this year is the worst the Borderlands has experienced at least since the 1930s Dust Bowl – the series of droughts paired with poor soil management practices led to horrendous dust storms and triggered an exodus of Americans out of the drought-stricken regions.

Parts of Otero County and leading into Texas towards El Paso has experienced almost 24 hours of brownout conditions in recent months, the bouts of blowing dust and sand so intense that one can’t see more than a few hundred yards ahead with highway crashes and police recommendations to stay home and off the roads.

Forecasters expect another series of blowing dust storms to hit El Paso, Otero County New Mexico and the Borderlands this week from Tuesday through Friday. Average wind speeds so far this month have been slightly below the historical average, but the National Weather Service predicts gusts will top 40 miles per hour and greater this new week.

A monitoring station at Hueco Elementary School in Socorro, New Mexico shows the daily average concentration of small particulate matter – called PM 2.5 – at nearly 64 micrograms per cubic meter this year. That’s well above what the Environmental Protection Agency considers an unhealthy level of particulate pollution for anyone to be exposed to.

The region has experienced intense drought amid the driest two-year period here since the mid-1930s. And so far this year, the desert floor of Otero County and Alamogordo has seen limited rainfall and a dryer than normal winter. Usually by this time of year the area experiences, on average, 1.3  or more inches of precipitation, according to the National Weather Service.

And 2023 and 2024 were the two hottest years ever recorded for the area near El Paso to include Otero County New Mexico. 

So, historic heat has further dried out already-parched vegetation, leaving little organic material to anchor dust and sand to the ground in the areas surrounding Alamogordo and the fine mist of the gypsum sands of the White Sands adds to the atmospheric complexity.

Seniors and individuals that are health compromised are advised to seek filtered masks if traveling around the country in the most rural areas of high desert Tuesday through Thursday. Be wary of dust conditions when driving and pull over if visibility is lost to the far extreme right of roadways or onto parking lots. 

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5-12-2025 4:40pm

The federal govt. over the last several decades has been on a mission
to justify it's proclamations on global warming and climate change by
hook or by crook.  The NWS and the EPA (the only 2 sources listed in
the article) have led the way.
Both agencies started off in the late '80's and early '90's by issuing study
reports that bore little to no resemblance to study data.  The data is
federal record, deleting or altering it is a federal crime, so instead, the
agencies issued reports that fit their political agenda, because law makers
for the most part only read report summaries, rarely the entire report, and
never the study data.  Anyone looking at the data and challenging the
reports was viciously attacked or simply dismissed as not holding proper
degrees in the fields.
I first learned of these tactics over 25 years ago when challenging an indoor smoking ban.  The CDC and the EPA both issued reports that
completely contradicted the study data (which I reviewed) they were supposed to represent.
The NWS is currently issuing false statistics on climate by limiting access
to actual historical weather data, and substituting computer generated
models of historic data (models that have been proven to be highly inaccurate), including temp, humidity, wind, rain, and snowfall.
The drought report and forcast are both totally unreliable because they
weight current and historic data (which is from the model, not record)
with "local experts" opinion.  The "local experts" are not meteorologists,
they are local businessmen and activists that may have a vested interest
in saying an area is dryer or wetter than "normal".

The level of PM2.5 stated in the article is also suspect.
The CDC mentions the inadequate nature of the EPA air quality data,
noting that few if any monitoring stations operate 24/7, and that the
stations are only switched on when EPA thinks it can record high levels.

It's interesting to note that the CDC has no guidelines setting a safe or dangerous level of PM2.5 pollution.  So if our healthcare system hasn't
determined these levels, how can the EPA?  Has the EPA conducted
human health studies that it hasn't shared with the CDC or FDA?

It's good to remember that anytime you hear someone say it's cooler or
warmer, wetter, or drier than average, the average they're referring to is
from an inaccurate computer model, not historical records.
The good news is that there's hope for the future of science as we start
to separate politics out of it.

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5-14-2025 10:21pm

The comments of yours that I have seen over the past week or so tend
to be just politically motivated knee jerk reactions, without any real thought
and definitely no research into any of the issues at hand.
This article has tried to define our current weather as historic events
and has covertly implied that they are due to climate change.
My comments simply reflect the idea that you cannot define something
as historic without having an accurate history to compare it with.
Which we don't.
I have great respect for Mr. Edwards, but I feel he could've done a better
job on fact checking this story, which he has taken in large part from the
El Paso Matters publication.
That being said, fact checking the issues brought up in the article is an
extremely difficult and time consuming chore.
I spent over 3 months fact checking the NWS by creating a daily log
database of my own observations, and 6 other local weather observation
stations including Alamogordo airport, Holloman AFB, and El Paso.
I spent 2 weeks incorporating both the model generated averages, and
actual historical data for the past 100 years into the database.
One of the disturbing things I found is that official stations would
mysteriously go offline when the temps were lower than average, or
when it was raining.  Bringing the average temp up, and rainfall down.

I take the time to educate myself on issues before offering my opinion,
I just wish you and others would do the same.

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