Texas Dust and Smoke January 31, 2008

• Visibility Animation
• Satellite Animation - Texas
• Satellite Animation - South Texas
• GOES Visible-Infrared Composite
• Satellite Image 10:55 am CST - West Texas False Color (from UT CSR)
• Satellite Image 11:56 am CST - West Texas True Color (from UT CSR)
• Satellite Image 1:34 pm CST - Central Texas True Color (from UW SSEC)

Strong gusty northwest winds caused blowing dust in parts of West and South Texas on Thursday, January 31st.   Wind gusts as high as 52 miles per hour were reported at Midland Airpark. The most intense blowing dust was in the Big Spring area based on satellite imagery and airport visibility observations.   The dust was carried southeastward into Central Texas.   The strong winds also aggravated wild fires that sent several long smoke plumes across parts of Central and South Texas.   Smoke plumes impacted western portions of the San Antonio area along with the transported dust.  

PM10 measurements were not available in the most strongly affected blowing dust areas, but airport visibility observations indicate that PM10 likely reached Level Yellow, Moderate, on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Air Quality Index (AQI) scale in the Big Spring area and possibly at San Angelo, Sonora, and Rocksprings as well.   The highest measured PM10 daily average was 57 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m³) at the Laredo Continuous Ambient Monitoring Station (CAMS) 44 and rated as "Moderate", with a peak one-hour PM10 average was 125 µg/m³.   Fine particulate reached "Moderate" at Mission CAMS 43, partly from blowing dust and partly from smoke.  

The highest measured one-hour average PM2.5 was 43.4 µg/m³ measured at Old Highway 90 CAMS 677 on the southwest side of San Antonio.

Some airport minimum visibility and peak wind gust observations are shown below: