US West’s Wild Rainy Weather Set to Extend Through Weekend
(Bloomberg) -- Moisture streaming north from two tropical storms is soaking the drought-parched US Southwest with heavy rain that’s set to extend through the weekend, drenching a desert area where hurricanes usually aren’t top of mind.
Flood warnings stretch across parts of Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico and are reaching into Utah and Colorado on Saturday, the National Weather Service said. Moisture from the remnants of Tropical Storm Priscilla has streamed into the area to bring 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 8 centimeters) of rain in the last 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 the Mexican state of Baja California Sur and pushed into the Sonoran desert before spreading across the US Southwest. Raymond was set to make landfall Saturday even as plumes of moisture from the tropical storm stream north into the US.
Raymond also is forecast to drop between 3 to 6 inches of rain across northwest Mexico, according to Servicio Meteorológico Nacional.
The region on both sides of the border was parched by the two worst categories of drought — extreme and exceptional — as of the end of summer, according to the North American Drought Monitor.
On the US side, Arizona and Utah are completely covered by drought, while Nevada and New Mexico have more than 60% of their land parched, along with most of western Colorado, the US Drought Monitor reported this week.
Where there isn’t damage by flooding, the rains from the remnants of Priscilla and Raymond will be welcome relief, Oravec said.
Further north, a separate storm is moving into the Pacific Northwest that will bring rain and snow across the Cascade and northern Rocky Mountains through the weekend. That system will drop down into Northern California, potentially bringing an early season snowfall to the Sierra Nevada range, Oravec said.
The heaviest rain and snow in California will likely be Monday.
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