If you live in El Paso , Las Cruces , or Ciudad Juárez and feel like you ’ve been inhale the Chihuahuan Desert of late , you ’re not imagining things . The Borderplex region is experiencing its dustiest season since the Dust Bowl , the period of annihilating debris storm that hit North America a century ago .
NASA ’s Aqua artificial satellite captured an image of the airborne dust from low - ground orbit on April 27 . The swaths of airborne particles are part of an ongoing set of storm pommel the Borderplex , the transnational area that includes southerly New Mexico , West Texas , and the Mexican state of Chihuahua . The fancy storm is just the recent in a string that is yeeting dry - up lake beds and parch soil into the southerly skies .
This twelvemonth ’s drouth - exacerbated dusty season is “ sincerely olympian — one for the disc record , ” say Thomas Gill , an environmental scientist at the University of Texas at El Paso , in a NASA Earth Observatoryrelease . Gill has tracked detritus activity across the planet ( and the Borderplex specifically ) for decennary .
Dust in west Texas.Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview
The effect imaged above is the tenth “ full - fledge ” storm of the year — a full - fledged event being a violent storm that reduces visibility to less than half a knot , Gill said . That ’s more than five times the average of 1.8 violent storm per yr — and makes 2025 the risky detritus time of year since 1936 , when the Dust Bowl sail America , lay into El Paso with 11 storms .
Why are there so many storms this year ? you’re able to blame it on a climatic cocktail of drought and phonograph recording - break out air current . March was the windy month the region has seen in over 50 eld , Gill said , and the area is in “ the worst drought we ’ve seen in at least a decade . ” My allergy clog fistula is thanking its lucky stars it is n’t in the Southwest right now .
But dust storm are n’t just an eyesore . The eventscontributeto dealings accidents and call down the danger of cardiorespiratory problems , and may exacerbate the spread ofValley Fever , a fungal infection . Gill and his confrere guess that detritus storms rack up over $ 150 billion in damage nationwide each year , hitting farmer , the vigour and healthcare industry , and households peculiarly hard .
NASA ’s planet and modeling tools are help scientist monitor and advantageously understand how dust go — and mode up in the ambiance , the particle can cross significant distances . One March tempest sent particles all the way to Greenland , agree to Santiago Gasso , an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland who is based at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center , in the same release .
So far in 2025 , the Borderplex has accrued 28 stale days — already surpass the annual average of 22 over the last poop - hundred — and more rubble is in the forecast for the part this weekend . If you do n’t have to , you may desire to hold off on cleaning your windows .
Dustdust stormssatellite imageryTexas
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