Latest news with #ThomasGill
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Record-breaking dusty days in El Paso raise health concerns
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A recent study published by UTEP professors shows El Paso has surpassed the yearly average for dusty days in 2025. According to data compiled by Thomas Gill, co-author of the study and professor of Earth environmental and resource sciences at UTEP, El Paso experiences around 22 dusty days throughout the year. 'As of May 12, we have actually had 30 days so far this year with blowing dust and that's already over the annual average, which is about 22 or 23. When the dust gets so thick that the visibility gets down to half a mile or less, brownout conditions, you can only see a few blocks or less, that's an official dust storm, and so far this year we have actually had 10 days with full dust storm conditions, and the last time that we had that many days, with complete dust storm conditions, the absolute brownouts was back in the Dust Bowl in 1936,' Gill said. The National Weather Service said the recent wind events and dust storms are due to a combination of factors. 'What's causing the amount of dust that we've had over the last of this year is where we have exceptional drought conditions that's persisted in the last couple of years with low rainfall, and higher amount of winds. It's just stirring up dust washes,' said Charley Kelly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Santa Teresa. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, most of southwest Texas is under a drought. Parts of El Paso are in either an extreme or exceptional drought which are considered the most severe categories. With the dry conditions, warmer temperatures and blowing winds come several threats which include heightened fire dangers and dangerous driving conditions, but Gill says people also need to consider how inhaling the dust and fine particles also impacts health. 'There are a lot of negative health effects from breathing the dust, from respiratory conditions, especially asthma and other respiratory conditions to even cardiovascular and circulatory diseases, can be exacerbated or worsened or maybe triggered by breathing dust, to diseases that we weren't as aware of years ago, like something called valley fever, which is caused by a fungus that lives in the soil and has been an under-recognized disease that is now increasing,' Gill said. According to the CDC, valley fever is a fungal lung infection that causes symptoms of pneumonia that can last a few weeks to a few months. Symptoms include: Fatigue Cough Fever and headache Shortness of breath Night sweats Muscle aches or joint pain Rash on upper body or legs Kelly said the strong winds will begin to tail off near the end of May, with little to no chance of dust storms as we enter summer. Whether or not the Borderland will see a similar dusty spring in 2026 depends on this year's monsoon season. At this time, the seasonal precipitation outlook produced by the National Oceanic and Administration (NOAA) shows El Paso has equal chances for precipitation which means well above, well below, or near normal rainfall. 'We've had a couple of years of really dry ones, so it's possible that we may end up getting lucky enough to get into a wet season if we do a true monsoon season and that would definitely help us settle the dust,' Kelly said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Timeline: El Paso faces record dust storms in 2025, worst since 1936 Dust Bowl
Dust storms in the Borderland are nothing new, but the severity of the weather events and their frequency have worsened, statistics note. Thomas Gill, professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso, noted that the recent dust storms have underscored a paradigm shift in how they impact the city. According to Gill, a bevy of inauspicious milestones have already been reached with these storms, which started in the region in March. They include: The last time there have been this many dust storms in El Paso in an entire year was 1936, during the Dust Bowl, which engulfed large swaths of Mid-America and Texas According to data compiled by Gill, El Paso had its windiest March, when this year's dust storms started, since 1964 There have already been over 26 recorded dust storms, as of April. El Paso typically only averages 22 the entire year. More on recent dust storms in El Paso Wind back in El Paso, New Mexico on Sunday. Expect low visibility, blowing dust Black Sunday: On April 14, 1935, Texas and Oklahoma faced the infamous Dust Bowl. Conditions exacerbated by record drought across the nation and high winds led to dust storms on unprecedented levels. Data from the National Centers for Environmental Information noted that 300,000 tons of topsoil were displaced from the prairie area. That was part of a series of dust storms that impacted western Kansas, eastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico, and the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. The destruction caused by the dust storms, and especially by the storm on Black Sunday, killed multiple people and was the catalyst for the Soil Conservation Act of 1936 by the federal government. The Southern San Joaquin Valley Dust Storm: Also known as the Great Bakersfield Dust Storm of 1977, it started in the late evening on Dec. 19, 1977, and ended in the afternoon of Dec. 21. It resulted in five deaths and $40 million in damages. Historic records by the NCEI noted that over 25 million cubic feet of topsoil from grazing land alone was moved. Wind was measured at 192 miles per hour in areas of California. In the foothills of the state, the wind was measured at 189 miles per hour. Texas Dust Storms of 1965: In what was considered the most severe dust storm in recent Texas history, Lubbock saw wind gusts up to 75 miles per hour with dust blowing as high as 31,000 feet. Reports stated the rain gauge at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock contains 3 inches of fine sand. Visibility was reduced to 100 yards. Another dust storm occurred in 1977 and destroyed millions of dollars worth of winter wheat and injured 20 people in El Paso. While the 1965 dust storm was blamed on severe drought conditions, another similar drought happened in 1970. More on El Paso dust storm deaths Dust storm, speeding factors in fatal truck crash in Northeast El Paso Kristian Jaime is the top story reporter for the El Paso Times and is reachable at Kjaime@ This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Timeline: El Paso faces record dust storms, worst since 1936 Dust Bowl
Newsweek
01-05-2025
- Climate
- Newsweek
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@ 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. 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. 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). 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).
New York Times
21-03-2025
- Climate
- New York Times
How Desert Southwest Dust Ends Up on Your Windshield in Des Moines
A series of powerful storms have whipped up winds across the Southwest and southern Plains in the last few weeks, churning up vast clouds of dust that have turned highways into hazard zones. In the last month, at least 20 people have died in car crashes amid low or nonexistent visibility. The impact of these dust storms stretched beyond the region. Strong winds carried the dust unusually far — hundreds of miles north and east — where it mixed with rain, leaving residents as far as the Mid-Atlantic puzzled by the orange residue coating their cars and homes. Here's a look at how a rare combination of drought and strong winds turned a relatively normal late-winter weather event into something far more unusual. In El Paso, 'it looks like Mars.' Dust storms are driven by winds that lift loose dirt up into the air — the drier the land, the less secure the soil. They occur all over the world, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa. In Europe, it's not uncommon for fine particles of sand from the deserts of northern Africa to get kicked up by warm, humid Saharan winds that blow from the south or the southeast across the Mediterranean Sea and into southern Europe. That dust can even get dragged as far north as Britain, where it's sometimes referred to as 'blood rain' because of its dirty hue. These storms can also happen just about anywhere in the United States, including eastern Washington and California's Central Valley. But they're especially common in the desert Southwest and across the southern Great Plains, particularly in late winter and early spring. The activity there has long peaked in April, though research shows the season is shifting earlier with storms increasingly being reported in March. Deserts, overgrazed land and areas experiencing drought are especially prone to dust storms. It's no coincidence that most of the Southwest and southern Plains are experiencing some level of drought, and it's especially bad in far West Texas. In El Paso, there have been more days with low visibility from dust than clear ones so far this month, said Thomas Gill, a professor of environmental science and engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso. 'It's kind of the expected weather in spring, and we live with it,' he said. 'But to have this dust that is so thick that you can barely see a block or two down the road and it looks like Mars, it's really unusual to have a dust storm that bad, much less three in less than three weeks' time.' Brownish snow fell as far as Iowa. There have been three main storms this month that have upended daily life in parts of the Southwest, southern Plains and Chihuahua, Mexico: one on March 3 and 4, one on March 14, last Friday, and one this week, on Tuesday. And each time, dust from this unusually intense succession of storms did something even more unusual: It was lofted up and carried hundreds of miles north and east to other parts of North America. National Weather Service offices in Charleston, and St. Louis have shared satellite images showing that dust from the Southwest had been swept up high into the atmosphere and then, as light rain moved through their regions, been pulled down to the ground. Last week, television stations as far away as North Carolina were talking about the 'dirty rain' that had fallen from the sky. Particles from Tuesday's dust storm made their way to Iowa, where snow on the ground had a 'brownish, yellowish tinge,' said Brooke Hagenhoff, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Des Moines. The dust was carried so far because of the orientation of the storm and the strength of the winds, said Bill Line, a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Center for Satellite Applications and Research. These systems come from the West Coast and move up and over the Rocky Mountains, gaining strength and intensity, Mr. Gill said. Then they move into eastern New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma and Kansas, which is essentially the 1930s Dust Bowl region. 'As these storms start intensifying in that region, the winds from those storms can extend hundreds of miles out from the center of the storm, all the way to the Mexican border and beyond and then all the way across the Plains,' he said. 'As they get more and more intense, the winds crank up.' All three recent events lasted several hours, but experts agree the one on March 14 was the most severe, with winds over 80 miles per hour kicking the dust far into the sky and helping to propel it into regions that don't normally see its effects. Aaron Ward, a meteorologist with the Weather Service, said an 83 m.p.h. gust was recorded in Amarillo, Texas — among the strongest ever measured by his office, with records going back 175 years. The dust from that event was carried well into Ontario by the next day, said Mr. Line. The March 14 wind storm didn't only whip up dust, it also caused wildfires to rapidly spread across Texas and Oklahoma. In detailed satellite imagery you could see the thick dispersion of dust sweeping east as well as the darker milky gray smoke plumes rising above the brown dust.
