Flood Threat High In Arizona

The storm dropping south off the southern California coast tonight and parked nearly stationary Friday into Saturday brings a high chance of flooding problems to portions of Arizona.

Spotty rain early tonight turns steadier and heavier late Thursday night and Friday for central and western Arizona. Training of rain can continue over parts of this area, especially central Arizona, Friday night and even into part of Saturday. Computer model forecasts are very impressive with the rainfall amounts. The map below is the total precipitation from this afternoon through the night Saturday night.

There is widespread amounts of 1-3 inches but a core of 3 to 5 inches from south of Casa Grande up to the Flagstaff area. Phoenix’s normal November rainfall is 0.65 inches. Normal winter rainfall, October through March, is only 4.89 inches. The Phoenix metro area could get 3-4 inches of rain.

Rain, no matter when it occurs in the desert Southwest, is usually very welcomed. And surely after such dry weather the last couple of years some of this rain is surely needed. But this is the case of too much rain too quickly. These rainfall amounts will bring local flooding problems. There can be major flooding problems in low lying spots and near typically dry gulches and riverbeds. If traveling anywhere in this area be very careful. Do not even attempt to cross running water no matter how shallow it may seem. People die each year making this very mistake.