PERSISTENT RAIN CAUSES FLOODING ACROSS THE SOUTH SEPTEMBER 1 - 4

At 800 AM PDT Monday,  August 28, 2006, the Tropical Prediction Center in Miami, FL began issuing advisories on Tropical Depression Eleven-E.  By 200 PM PDT that same afternoon the storm system was quickly upgraded to Tropical Storm John.  The storm was upgraded again the next day to a hurricane and strengthened to a dangerous category four hurricane with winds of 132 mph by Wednesday morning August 30th.  John maintained hurricane intensity on September 1st through 200 pm PDT Saturday, September 2nd when it was downgraded to a tropical storm as the storm began interacting with the southern tip of Baja California.
Meanwhile an upper level trough was approaching the western United States.  Strong southwesterly winds in the middle and upper portions of the atmosphere ahead of the upper level trough began transporting abundant moisture from the Baja into the Southwest United States. The enhanced plume of tropical moisture is evident on the Infrared satellite imagery taken 600 PM MDT Sunday, September 3rd. Deep moisture can be seen extending from the southern tip of Baja California northeastward into the OK/TX panhandles. The plume of tropical moisture began affecting the southern half of New Mexico on September 1st and continued through early on the 4th.  The most significant precipitation from this event fell over the southern third of New Mexico.  The table summarizes the preliminary storm total rainfall from across our region for the period from September 1-4, 2006.
Location Storm Total (Inches) Comment Reporting Period Ruidoso 5.25 Public Report 6pm Fri - 6pm Mon Ruidoso 4.40 COOP Station 4pm Fri - 4pm Mon Tatum  3.90 COOP Station 6am Sat - 6am Tue Roswell North 3.10 COOP Station 7am Fri - 7am Tue Las Cruces  3.09 NMSU 7am Sat - 7am Tue Alamogordo 3.08 COOP Station 6pm Sat - 6pm Mon Roswell 3.06 Airport 6pm Sat - 6pm Mon Cloudcroft 2.97 COOP Station 6pm Sat - 6pm Tue Columbus 2.59 COOP Station 6pm Sat - 6pm Mon Elk 2.44 COOP Station 6pm Sat - 6pm Mon Faywood 1.45 COOP Station 6pm Sat - 6pm Mon Deming 1.45 Airport 6pm Sat - 10am Mon Deming 1.26 COOP Station 6pm Sat - 6pm Tue Clovis  0.97 COOP Station 6pm Sat - 8am Mon Melrose 0.72 COOP Station 6pm Sat - 6pm Mon
Several days of moderate to heavy rainfall over Lincoln and Chaves counties prompted many arroyo and small stream flood advisories. Rain was reported on nearly every hourly observation at Roswell for two consecutive days. However, the heaviest rainfall occurred over the Sacramento Mountains where weeks of showers and thunderstorms led to more flooding from Mescalero and Bonito Lakes.  Evacuations were reported along the Rio Ruidoso and Carrizo Creeks as water topped the spillways.
The remnants of Hurricane John continued to add to the already unprecedented summer wet season across the state of New Mexico. For the period from June 1st through September 9th, 21.85 inches of precipitation has been reported Ruidoso. This ranks as the wettest summer on record since records began in 1941. It is the third wettest year so far on record with 23.84 inches. The wettest January 1st through September 9th period was 28.45 inches in 1965.