KVIA · Apr 27, 2025 corroborates
Dust Storm Warning for Dona Ana, El Paso and Otero
KVIA reproduced the exact-date NWS dust-storm warning for El Paso, with visibility below one-quarter mile and winds near 50 mph.
Dust High confidence
2025-04-27 Regional windblown dust affecting El Paso episode
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 164.3 µg/m³ near El Paso across 1 covered metro home to 879,392 people. 1 metro placed a top-ten day in their record.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 7.0 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 6.2 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 “Dust”
Independent satellite transport evidence and an exact local dust-storm warning identify dust as the event cause.
High confidence At least two independent causal origins and evidence families agree on this cause.
NASA Earth Observatory corroborates
Dusty Days Are Here Again for El Paso
NASA identifies an April 27 satellite image as the season's tenth full-fledged dust storm and says wind lofted particles and sent them toward El Paso.
kvia.com · Apr 27, 2025 corroborates
Dust Storm Warning for Dona Ana and Luna Counties until 7 PM, near zero visibility reported along Interstate 10
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.
- 1Documented
Source or mechanism
Dust
KVIA reproduced the exact-date NWS dust-storm warning for El Paso, with visibility below one-quarter mile and winds near 50 mph.
View supporting source ↗ - 2Documented
Air-mass movement
Transport into the affected region is documented
NASA identifies an April 27 satellite image as the season's tenth full-fledged dust storm and says wind lofted particles and sent them toward El Paso.
View transport source ↗ - 3Documented
Local response
164.3 µg/m³ near El Paso
The inaccessible result explicitly records an April 27 dust-storm warning covering El Paso, Las Cruces, Dona Ana and Otero counties; it corroborates dust occurrence but does not quantify PM2.5 contribution.
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 “Dust” explanation; it does not assign the cause by itself.
El Paso, TX
Monitor comparison window 2025-04-24 to 2025-04-30 · PM2.5 target: Ascarate Park SE
896% above nearby days
74% higher than surrounding days
1239% higher than surrounding days
Pollution fingerprint
Metro-wide median of reporting monitors PM2.5 136 µg/m³
896% higher than surrounding days
Before11.2 µg/m³ Event136 µg/m³ After13.6 µg/m³
PM10 1165 µg/m³
1239% higher than surrounding days
Before74.5 µg/m³ Event1165 µg/m³ After106 µg/m³
Carbon monoxide 0.281 ppm
About the same as surrounding days
Before0.351 ppm Event0.281 ppm After0.270 ppm
Nitrogen dioxide 3.54 ppb
71% lower than surrounding days
Before16.1 ppb Event3.54 ppb After10.5 ppb
Sulfur dioxide 0.057 ppb
68% lower than surrounding days
Before0.200 ppb Event0.057 ppb After0.058 ppb
Ozone 0.042 ppm
19% higher than surrounding days
Before0.028 ppm Event0.042 ppm After0.036 ppm
Atmospheric conditions
Nearby EPA weather observations10% lower than surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
74% higher than 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.
Views from the selected metro
Camera views near
Select a metro on the map to see nearby cameras. Where an operator archive reaches the event, drag the divider to compare two moments, adjust either date and time, or play the available event-day frames. Camera imagery is visual context, not an air-quality measurement or proof of smoke.
No useful public camera views are currently available within 80 km of this metro.
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| El Paso, TX | 164.3 µg/m³ | 7.5 | Apr 27, 2025 | #4 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.
Dusty Days Are Here Again for El Paso
NASA Earth Observatory
NASA identifies an April 27 satellite image as the season's tenth full-fledged dust storm and says wind lofted particles and sent them toward El Paso.
What it supports
A retained source supports the attributed cause for the stated place and dates.
Limit
The satellite account describes transported dust, not the exact contribution to the daily PM2.5 statistic.
Dust Storm Warning for Dona Ana, El Paso and Otero
KVIA
KVIA reproduced the exact-date NWS dust-storm warning for El Paso, with visibility below one-quarter mile and winds near 50 mph.
What it supports
A retained source supports the attributed cause for the stated place and dates.
Limit
The warning establishes the dust storm and its local impact, not a finalized daily source-apportionment value.
What remains uncertain
- The sources establish the dominant episode cause but do not quantify the dust-only fraction of daily PM2.5.
Status and provenance
High confidence At least two independent causal origins and evidence families agree on this cause.
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.