Texas Commission on Environmental Quality · Feb 19, 2026 official
Air Quality Index Report
TCEQ's daily report lists PM2.5 as the critical pollutant for McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, with an Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups rating.
Other Documented
2026-02-19 other transported pollution episode affecting McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 43.9 µg/m³ near McAllen across 1 covered metro home to 914,820 people.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 1.6 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 1.4 million cigarettes. An awareness illustration of outdoor exposure at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette (Berkeley Earth), counting only the event's ranked days; not a medical dose.
Why we think this happened
The basis for “Other”
The supplied retained evidence supports other transported pollution for this event; no supplied evidence establishes membership in a broader time-bounded episode.
Documented An agency or publisher page assesses this cause, without an agency record naming the event or an EPA qualifier on the data.
MySA · Feb 19, 2026 corroborates
Why air pollution from Mexico is causing headaches in South Texas
Reporting attributed Rio Grande Valley haze and poor air quality to smoke and soot transported from Mexico and trapped beneath a sharp inversion; it cited the National Weather Service Brownsville forecast office.
Evidence path
From source to city
A cause is more convincing when the record connects three things: something happened, the air mass moved toward the region, and local instruments responded. Here is how much of that chain is documented for this event.
- 1Open question
Source or mechanism
Source not directly documented
The catalog has a grouping hypothesis, but no retained source directly establishes the proposed cause.
- 2Documented
Air-mass movement
Transport into the affected region is documented
Reporting attributed Rio Grande Valley haze and poor air quality to smoke and soot transported from Mexico and trapped beneath a sharp inversion; it cited the National Weather Service Brownsville forecast office.
View transport source ↗ - 3Documented
Local response
43.9 µg/m³ near McAllen
TCEQ's daily report lists PM2.5 as the critical pollutant for McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, with an Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups rating.
Inspect the pollutant and weather signals ↓
Event autopsy
What the instruments saw
Before, during, and after the episode: nearby pollutant monitors and surface-weather stations show what changed. This context tests the “Other” explanation; it does not assign the cause by itself.
McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX
Monitor comparison window 2026-02-16 to 2026-02-22 · PM2.5 target: Edinburg East Freddy Gonzalez Drive
121% above nearby days
About the same as surrounding days
42% higher than surrounding days
Pollution fingerprint
Metro-wide median of reporting monitors PM2.5 41.9 µg/m³
121% higher than surrounding days
Before13 µg/m³ Event41.9 µg/m³ After19 µg/m³
PM10 71 µg/m³
42% higher than surrounding days
Before39 µg/m³ Event71 µg/m³ After59 µg/m³
Ozone 0.042 ppm
6% higher than surrounding days
Before0.036 ppm Event0.042 ppm After0.040 ppm
Atmospheric conditions
Nearby EPA weather observationsAbout the same as surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
Source: U.S. EPA AirData daily observations and, where available, nearby ASOS/AWOS surface observations. Values are descriptive medians over the retained monitor set; missing measurements remain missing. Transport and source evidence remain separate layers because this instrument pattern does not assign a cause by itself.
Measured daily PM2.5 at EPA monitors, as cigarette-equivalents
EPA monitors sit in metro areas, so the colour clusters there. Land between and beyond
them is unmeasured, not clean: this map shows where IAQng has readings, not the extent
of the smoke.
—
Episode peak
-- cigarettes
The smoke map's scale, replayed over this event: the surface interpolates between covered metros' daily records, framed to the affected region. Hover for a reading, click a metro to pin it to the card. Days a monitor did not report draw nothing.
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX | 43.9 µg/m³ | 2.0 | Feb 19, 2026 | #17 of its top days |
"Cigarettes, whole event" totals a metro's ranked event days at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette: what a person outdoors there breathed across the event, as the illustration. "All-time standing" is where this episode's days sit in each metro's ranked record (worst-area measure, since 1999). Full local context is on each metro's Air Records page.
Public evidence library
What supports this account
Each card states what a source supports—and what it does not. Official records, research, reporting, community observations, and transparent inferences remain visibly different kinds of evidence.
Agency and publisher pages 2
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TCEQ's daily report lists PM2.5 as the critical pollutant for McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, with an Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups rating.
-
Why air pollution from Mexico is causing headaches in South Texas
Reporting attributed Rio Grande Valley haze and poor air quality to smoke and soot transported from Mexico and trapped beneath a sharp inversion; it cited the National Weather Service Brownsville forecast office.
Status and provenance
Documented An agency or publisher page assesses this cause, without an agency record naming the event or an EPA qualifier on the data.
This episode was grouped from the monitor record by the catalog pipeline and given its cause from the evidence listed above. It has not been individually reviewed and signed off, so its boundaries, cause, and name may change as evidence accumulates. Grouping policy common_sense_root_cause_grouping.v2. The cause label reflects the assembled evidence above, not an IAQng detection formula. If it is wrong, tell us.