Moisture streaming north from two tropical storms is drenching the drought-parched US Southwest with heavy rain, a pattern expected to continue through the weekend. This rainfall is soaking a desert region where hurricanes rarely make headlines.
Flood warnings stretch across parts of Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico, reaching into Utah and Colorado on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. Moisture from the remnants of Tropical Storm Priscilla has brought 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 8 centimeters) of rain over the past few days, said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center.
“Right behind it is Tropical Storm Raymond,” Oravec said. “There is a potential for heavy rains from the tropical moisture that is coming out of the Pacific.”
Priscilla swept across Baja California Sur in Mexico and pushed into the Sonoran Desert before spreading across the US Southwest. Meanwhile, Raymond was set to make landfall on Saturday, even as plumes of moisture from the storm stream north into the US.
Raymond is also forecast to drop 3 to 6 inches of rain across northwest Mexico, according to Servicio Meteorológico Nacional.
The region on both sides of the border suffered extreme and exceptional drought as of the end of summer, the North American Drought Monitor reported.
In the US, Arizona and Utah are entirely affected by drought, while Nevada and New Mexico have more than 60% of their land parched. Most of western Colorado also faces severe dryness, the US Drought Monitor noted this week.
Where flooding hasn’t caused damage, the rains from the remnants of Priscilla and Raymond will provide welcome relief, Oravec said.
Further north, a separate storm is moving into the Pacific Northwest, bringing rain and snow across the Cascade and northern Rocky Mountains through the weekend. That system will move into Northern California, potentially delivering early-season snowfall to the Sierra Nevada range, Oravec added.
California is expected to see the heaviest rain and snow on Monday.
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