When you dwell in El Paso, Las Cruces, or Ciudad Juárez and really feel such as you’ve been inhaling the Chihuahuan Desert recently, you’re not imagining issues. The Borderplex area is experiencing its dustiest season for the reason that Mud Bowl, the interval of devastating mud storms that hit North America a century in the past.
NASA’s Aqua satellite tv for pc captured a picture of the airborne mud from low-Earth orbit on April 27. The swaths of airborne particles are a part of an ongoing set of storms pummeling the Borderplex, the transnational space that features southern New Mexico, West Texas, and the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The imaged storm is simply the most recent in a string that’s yeeting dried-up lake beds and parched soil into the southern skies.
This yr’s drought-exacerbated dusty season is “really distinctive—one for the file books,” stated Thomas Gill, an environmental scientist on the College of Texas at El Paso, in a NASA Earth Observatory launch. Gill has tracked mud exercise throughout the planet (and the Borderplex particularly) for many years.
The occasion imaged above is the tenth “full-fledged” storm of the yr—a full-fledged occasion being a storm that reduces visibility to lower than half a mile, Gill stated. That’s greater than 5 occasions the typical of 1.8 storms per yr—and makes 2025 the worst mud season since 1936, when the Mud Bowl swept America, laying into El Paso with 11 storms.
Why are there so many storms this yr? You may blame it on a climatic cocktail of drought and record-breaking wind. March was the windiest month the area has seen in over 50 years, Gill stated, and the world is in “the worst drought we’ve seen in a minimum of a decade.” My allergy clogged sinus is thanking its fortunate stars it isn’t within the Southwest proper now.
However mud storms aren’t simply an eyesore. The occasions contribute to site visitors accidents and lift the danger of cardiorespiratory issues, and will worsen the unfold of Valley Fever, a fungal an infection. Gill and his colleagues estimated that mud storms rack up over $150 billion in harm nationally every year, hitting farmers, the vitality and healthcare industries, and households particularly arduous.
NASA’s satellites and modeling instruments are serving to scientists monitor and higher perceive how mud travels—and manner up within the ambiance, the particles can traverse vital distances. One March storm despatched particles all the way in which to Greenland, based on Santiago Gasso, an atmospheric scientist on the College of Maryland who relies at NASA’s Goddard House Flight Middle, in the identical launch.
To date in 2025, the Borderplex has accrued 28 dusty days—already exceeding the annual common of twenty-two over the past quarter-century—and extra mud is within the forecast for the area this weekend. When you don’t should, you might wish to maintain off on cleansing your home windows.
