First Priscilla, Now Raymond: The Desert Southwest Sees Another Round Of Tropical Moisture Rob Shackelford October 12, 2025 at 10:30 PM 4 Priscilla and Raymond have been bringing significant rainfall to the Southwest over the weekend.
- - First Priscilla, Now Raymond: The Desert Southwest Sees Another Round Of Tropical Moisture
Rob Shackelford October 12, 2025 at 10:30 PM
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Priscilla and Raymond have been bringing significant rainfall to the Southwest over the weekend. While Priscilla's rainfall has wrapped up for the Southwest, remnants of Raymond are impacting the waterlogged region Sunday and will last into Monday.
Current RadarRainfall From Raymond Ongoing
Through Tuesday: Abundant moisture from Raymond's remnants is moving through parts of the Southwest Sunday, right on the heels of Priscilla.
A flash flood emergency has been issued for parts of Pinal County in southeastern Arizona late Sunday morning. The National Weather Service warns that 2-3 inches of rainfall have already fallen. Whitlow Canyon, located about 50 miles southeast of Phoenix, and Queen Creek, located about 38 miles southeast of Phoenix, are included in the emergency.
Flood watches are in effect in cities including Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona; and Durango, Colorado; and Lordsburg, New Mexico. Some of these watches will last into Monday and Tuesday.
Numerous water rescues have been reported around Phoenix Sunday morning due to heavy rain. Up to 2.5 inches of rain has fallen in the area through mid-Sunday morning. Phoenix saw 0.70 inches on Saturday from Priscilla, which was also a daily record.
The combined rainfall of Priscilla and Raymond have helped the city to see their 5th wettest October on record. Any additional rainfall could push them even higher. They could see an additional 0.5-1.5 inches of rainfall through Sunday evening. Phoenix's average rainfall for the month of October is about 0.56 inches.
Rainfall Forecast
While the heaviest rainfall isn't exactly the same as the heaviest rainfall of Priscilla, any additional rainfall can easily cause additional flooding.
NOAA suggests the flood threat will remain a 2-out-of-4 risk, but that the threat will remain elevated at this level through early Tuesday in parts of the Southwest.
Rainfall Could Be Helpful
The Southwest is actually in drought and could use the rain. Arizona and Utah are entirely under drought, according to the latest from the US Drought Monitor.
Phoenix and Flagstaff, Arizona, as well as Salt Lake City and Cedar City, Utah, are all running over an inch below average for this time of the year.
While rainfall from these storms could be helpful, this much rainfall in such a short period of time is not as helpful for relieving drought as people would think.
Why Pacific Hurricanes Matter In The Southwest
When the region is called the Desert Southwest, it is no surprise that rainfall is scarce.
Phoenix, for example, has a yearly average rainfall of 7.22 inches, with no monthly average even reaching 1 inch.
But states like California and Arizona do experience bursts of moisture from the tropics several times during a year.
They can often bring several inches of rainfall. That may not seem like a lot to someone in the Southeast, but to the Southwest, this is a big deal.
Desert soil isn't able to hold moisture as well as other regions, so it doesn't take much rainfall before runoff and flooding begin. Dangerous land and rock slides are often not far behind.
And recent burn scars are even more susceptible to these dangerous debris flows and landslides.
What Happened So far
Priscilla and Raymond were back-to-back storms that formed in the East Pacific and took similar paths towards the Southwest. Despite both of these storms falling apart before reaching the region, they brought bursts of moisture to parts of the Southwest, leading to a multi-day flood threat that stretched from southern Arizona to the Four Corners.
Las Vegas saw 0.92 inches of rainfall on Friday, which was the fourth wettest day ever recorded in October. This rainfall total shattered the previous daily rainfall record of 0.16 set back in 2012. Daily records also fell across parts of Arizona on Friday including Flagstaff, Winslow and Prescott.
Flagstaff saw more than 2 inches of rain over the weekend. Grand Junction, CO also saw more than 2 inches of rain, setting daily rainfall records on both Friday and Saturday.
Jacks Canyon, located east-southeast of Flagstaff, Arizona, saw a more than 5-foot rise in water levels late Friday morning due to around one inch of rain.
Between the two storms, storm totals of 2-4 inches of rain are possible in some spots, with localized areas seeing up to 6 inches.
Rob Shackelford is a meteorologist and climate scientist at weather.com. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Georgia studying meteorology and experimenting with alternative hurricane forecasting tools.
Source: "AOL General News"
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