NASA Images Reveal Texan Conditions Not Seen Since 1936
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Stuck in the grip of an exceptional drought, the city of El Paso, Texas, is facing dusty conditions not seen in nearly 90 years.
NASA has released an image of the latest dust storm captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the space agency's Aqua satellite, on April 27.
Particles can be seen streaming through the air from dried lakes and other parched areas in New Mexico and the Mexican state of Chihuahua toward El Paso and Las Cruces.
Environmental scientist Thomas Gill of the University of Texas at El Paso has been using such satellite observations and modeling to track dust activity in the Borderplex Region that straddles the Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua border intersection.
Gill said that this year's busy dust season, which typically spans March through May for the city, has been "truly exceptional—one for the record books."
A "full-fledged" dust storm, Gill added, is one in which visibility falls to just half-a-mile. This latest storm is the 10th such event this year—far above the 1.8 storm annual average.
"You would have to go back to 1936, during the Dust Bowl, to find a year with more," Gill added. The year 1936 saw El Paso hit with 11 dust storms; 1935 saw a total of 13.
NASA image of dust storms over the Borderplex Region on April 27, 2025.
NASA image of dust storms over the Borderplex Region on April 27, 2025.
NASA / Wanmei Liang / MODIS
The storms of the Dust Bowl were caused by a combination of severe drought alongside the expansion of farming land amid the Great Depression and poor farming practices that damaged natural topsoils and enabled wind erosion.
The present dust storms, meanwhile, are the result of extreme drought and unusually windy conditions.
"We're in the worst drought we've seen in at least a decade—and this March was the windiest we've seen in more than 50 years," Gill said.
The environmental scientist and his colleagues have found that the dangers of dust storms are often underestimated.
By slashing visibility, storms can lead to an increase in traffic accidents; dust has also been linked to an increase in emergency-room visits resulting from cardiorespiratory problems and is also suspected to play a role in Valley Fever.
This condition—formally known as coccidioidomycosis, after the soil-swelling Coccidiodes fungus that causes it—can cause symptoms including cough, fever and shortness of breath.
Alongside these health issues, it has also been estimated that dust storms typically cause in excess of $150 billion in economic damages each year, with farmers, households, the renewable energy industry and the health-care sector all taking hits.
"It should be interesting to see how far the dust from this event travels," said atmospheric scientist Santiago Gasso, who works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
"Some of it could be headed to the Great Lakes, New England and maybe even to Greenland—as happened after one of the storms in March."
As for the Borderplex region, more dust is expected to hit El Paso and its neighbors, perhaps even as early as this weekend.
So far this dust season, the area has seen 28 days with dust—significantly higher than the 22-day average seen over the past 25 years.
Gill concluded: "We still have several more weeks of the dust season to go."
Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about dust storms? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
References
Feng, I. Y., Gill, T. E., Van Pelt, R. S., Webb, N. P., & Tong, D. Q. (2025). Economic costs of wind erosion in the United States. Nature Sustainability, 8(3), 307—314. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01506-4
Tong, D. Q., Feng, I., Gill, T. E., Schepanski, K., & Wang, J. (2023). How Many People Were Killed by Windblown Dust Events in the United States?
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0186.1
Tong, D. Q., Gill, T. E., Sprigg, W. A., Van Pelt, R. S., Baklanov, A. A., Barker, B. M., Bell, J. E., Castillo, J., Gassó, S., Gaston, C. J., Griffin, D. W., Huneeus, N., Kahn, R. A., Kuciauskas, A. P., Ladino, L. A., Li, J., Mayol-Bracero, O. L., McCotter, O. Z., Méndez-Lázaro, P. A., … Vimic, A. V. (2023). Health and Safety Effects of Airborne Soil Dust in the Americas and Beyond. Reviews of Geophysics, 61(2). https://doi.org/10.1029/2021RG000763
Tong, D. Q., Gorris, M. E., Gill, T. E., Ardon-Dryer, K., Wang, J., & Ren, L. (2022). Dust Storms, Valley Fever, and Public Awareness. GeoHealth, 6(8). https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GH000642
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