Flood warning for western Montezuma County runs to Monday
A new weather service warning issued Friday afternoon covers the county's western edge until 9 a.m. Monday as the San Juan River floods downstream. The wider Four Corners flood watch now runs to Sunday noon.
The National Weather Service issued a new flood warning for western Montezuma County at 3:46 p.m. Friday and set it to run until 9 a.m. Monday — a window nearly three days long, and the longest of the bulletins that have covered the county this week.
Graphic: Cortez Current. Source: National Weather Service and KSJD
The warning covers western Montezuma County in southwestern Colorado and southern San Juan County in southeastern Utah. Flooding “caused by excessive rainfall is ongoing,” the bulletin says.
What it says
The hazard the weather service describes is the San Juan River. “Flooding along San Juan River is occurring,” the bulletin reads. “Low-water crossing are inundated with water and may not be passable. The river is running fast and high. Do not attempt to cross.”
At 3:42 p.m. forecasters expected the river to crest overnight, around midnight, between Bluff and Mexican Hat in Utah. They then expect a second and higher rise, peaking at Mexican Hat on Sunday into Monday — which is why the warning runs as far as Monday morning rather than ending with the rain.
It is worth being clear about where the flooding itself is expected. Every place the weather service names is downstream in Utah: Mexican Hat, Tselakai Dezza, Bluff, Halchita, Montezuma Creek and Aneth. The warning area reaches into the western end of Montezuma County, but this is not a forecast of flooding in Cortez, Dolores or Mancos.
The advice is the standard flood advice. “Turn around, don’t drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood deaths occur in vehicles,” the bulletin says, and it asks people to keep clear of the water itself: “Stay away or be swept away. River banks and culverts can become unstable and unsafe.”
The wider watch now runs to Sunday
The broader flood watch covering the Four Corners and the mountains above us was re-issued at 11:59 a.m. Friday and now runs until noon Sunday. It covers the Four Corners and Upper Dolores area, the Paradox Valley and Lower Dolores River, the northwestern and southwestern San Juan Mountains, and the Uncompahgre Plateau and Dallas Divide.
That is an extension of the watch this morning’s bulletins carried, not a second one. Friday’s earlier flood warning for southern Montezuma County and the flood advisory for Dolores, both reported in our account of the morning’s four bulletins, have expired on their own terms.
A watch means conditions are possible; a warning means flooding is happening or about to.
How much rain has fallen
October has been extraordinarily wet. More than three inches of rain had been measured at Cortez by 8 a.m. Thursday, which is 291% of the historic average for the whole month, local weather observer James Andrus told KSJD — and that figure does not include the heavier rain that fell later that day. Nearly an inch and a half of it came down on Wednesday alone.
KSJD reported that Cortez’s drought classification has eased to moderate. The station described that as a step down from the extreme drought the town sat in through the summer; a wet September had already moved the rating to severe by the start of October, one category above where it stands now.
Roads and power
The Colorado Department of Transportation’s Friday closure list, as reported by KSJD, has no road in Montezuma County on it. The extended safety closures are east and north of us: US 160 west of Pagosa Springs and through the town at McCabe Creek, US 160 over Wolf Creek Pass, US 550 over Red Mountain Pass between Silverton and Ouray, CO 151 at Chimney Rock, and CO 17 over Cumbres and La Manga passes. The department asked people to avoid travel while flood warnings and watches are up across southwest and south-central Colorado, and said closures could be extended depending on weather, water levels and highway damage.
Empire Electric’s outage map showed no active outages at 5:17 p.m. Friday, with 17,423 customers served.
Current watches and warnings for the Cortez area are listed by the National Weather Service. Rainfall figures and the road closure list come from KSJD.