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

From El Paso Matters:

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.

“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.

“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.

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.”