Day and Night – Flood and Drought

This picture was taken on the way back from field measurements at Lordsburg Playa in New Mexico, USA. With an extent of approximately 10 km in East-West, and 30 km in North-South direction, Lordsburg Playa is a significant dust source in the Southwestern Unites States. It is of particular interest for traffic, as the highway I-10 crosses the playa. Windy conditions and associated dust emissions at the playa frequently lead to drastically reduced visibilities on the highway and severe traffic accidents. In October 2016, I went to a one-week field trip to the playa and installed a temporary measurement site to study local dust emission mechanisms. At that time, parts of the playa were still flooded from summer monsoon precipitation. During the one-week field trip, we were lucky and witnessed a strong dust event that for a short time reduced visibility to a few meters. Fortunately, the dust was blown northward during this event and the highway was not affected.