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Above-average winds and long-term drought affect El Paso’s air quality [1]

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Date: 2025-02-20

If it seems like there’s more dust floating around El Paso’s air this year than normal, that’s because there is.

So far in 2025, daily particulate matter pollution – which often results from wind and dust, as well as combustion – is the highest it’s been for this time of year in El Paso since at least 2000, according to figures collected by a federal air quality monitor in Socorro.

The monitor, at Hueco Elementary School, has produced the most consistent historical information on particulate pollution of any air monitor in the borderland, according to public data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

EPA officials based in El Paso have long said vehicles are a big source of local particulate pollution, and so are the unpaved dirt roads where vehicles kick up dust throughout El Paso County as well as Ciudad Juárez. But stronger-than-normal winds coupled with an unusually hot and dry February have led to more dust in the air and slightly worsened air quality in El Paso so far in 2025.

“This year has definitely been on the dusty and hazy side,” said Thomas Gill, an earth system and environmental scientist who is a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. “Breathing air with high concentrations of particulate matter, specifically including dust, is definitely hazardous to health.”

Dust and other particulates kicked up by strong winds on Feb. 20, 2025, obscure the mountain range in far east El Paso County. (Diego Mendoza-Moyers / El Paso Matters)

Average wind speeds in El Paso this year have been about 0.6 miles per hour faster compared with the historical average wind speeds here in January and February, according to National Weather Service data spanning from 1970 to 2024.

While that’s not a drastic departure from the typical early-year gusts El Paso experiences, the city has received less than a tenth of an inch – 0.07 inches – of precipitation so far this year. Historically, El Paso has usually seen 0.68 inches of rainfall or snow by mid-February, according to the NWS. And 2023 through 2024 was the driest two-year stretch for El Paso since the mid-1930s.

It’s also been a far warmer February than normal in El Paso. The average daily high temperature El Paso experienced in February from 1991 through 2020 – considered the “normal” – was 63 degrees. But, so far this month, daily highs have averaged 74 degrees, according to the NWS.

All of El Paso County has been experiencing a continuous drought since August 2023, one of the longest periods of uninterrupted drought on record in El Paso. But the dry conditions have intensified further over the last six months and, since October, the entire county has been experiencing a “severe” drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“It’s very clear from numerous studies that in our Chihuahuan Desert, more drought years and more intense drought means more windblown sand and dust,” Gill said. “In drought conditions, less desert vegetation grows and anchors the land surface from the wind, leaving more bare ground – and drier ground – which means more exposed desert soil that can easily blow away.”

Since 2000, Gill said, El Paso on average has experienced 22 dusty days per year. Just a few weeks into this year, the city has already seen eight dusty days.

Thomas E. Gill, professor of environmental science at The University of Texas at El Paso, left, with co-author John Knox of the University of Georgia in an undated photo. Gill, Knox and additional co-authors recently published over two decades of data on bounce house injuries and deaths caused by wind events. (Courtesy of UTEP)

“And the peak of the dust season – March through June, when we would expect most frequent dust events in El Paso – is coming,” Gill said.

Winds in El Paso typically get stronger as the year progresses, peaking in April at 10.6 miles per hour on average. Winds are usually weakest in El Paso in September, according to the NWS.

“In general, El Paso can experience gusty winds during frontal passages, which occur early in the year, resulting in increased dust in the air,” said a spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. A frontal passage refers to a weather front that moves into an area.

Blowing dust takes a toll both on El Pasoans’ health as well as the borderland economy.

Fine particles referred to as PM 2.5 – meaning 2.5 micrometers, 30 times smaller than a strand of human hair – can enter your lungs, damaging lung functions and breathing and can also exacerbate upper respiratory illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis. Winds can also carry fungal spores that can trigger Valley Fever, an infectious disease common in the southwestern U.S.

Dust hangs over El Paso and Ciudad Juárez on a windy morning on Feb. 20, 2025. (Diego Mendoza-Moyers / El Paso Matters)

“Smaller particles (PM10 and PM2.5) can travel further into the lungs, potentially causing health problems,” the TCEQ spokesman said in an email.

Beyond health effects, a study Gill helped author that was published in January found blowing dust costs the U.S. economy $154 billion annually. That’s because dust can lead to auto accidents and highway closures, limit electricity production from solar fields and even affect how much snow melts off from the Rocky Mountains and becomes water flowing in the Rio Grande that farmers in places such as Hatch, New Mexico, rely on.

See Also Residents near Bridge of the Americas demand action on truck pollution; businesses warn of economic impacts Residents in El Paso’s Chamizal neighborhood are concerned with diesel truck pollution at the Bridge of the Americas. El Paso businesses say banning commercial traffic at the border crossing will adversely impact the region’s economy.

Still, while public data show stronger winds, intensified drought and slightly worse-than-normal air quality in El Paso this year, the city is no stranger to dealing with blowing wind and dust.

A different study Gill participated in that was published in recent days found deposits of windblown dust and sand in El Paso from 2011 to 2016 were “higher than almost all other North American sites, but generally lower than Global Dust Belt locations.” That means the only part of the world dustier than El Paso is the region spanning from the Sahara Desert in North Africa, across the Middle East to the Gobi Desert in northern China.

“El Paso, Texas,” the study read, “appears to be one of the dustiest/sandiest cities in North America.”

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[1] Url: http://elpasomatters.org/2025/02/20/el-paso-weather-high-winds-bring-dust-epa/

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