Heavy rains expected to bring flooding risk to already saturated parts of the US Southwest

Heavy rains starting Saturday evening were expected to bring a threat of flash flooding to already saturated areas of the U.S. Southwest through Monday, according to the National Weather Service. As much as 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain could fall across the region, where a number of weather systems have brought a deadly autumn of soaking rains. Several people were rescued from floodwaters Friday in Arizona and Nevada. “It’s not going to take much rainfall to be impactful at all in some of these locations just because of how saturated they are,” said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

The National Weather Service has issued flood watches for nearly all of Arizona and parts of southern Utah, southwestern Colorado, and western New Mexico, in addition to part of southern Nevada. Those watches include the Four Corners region, a sparsely populated area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet that has been hit especially hard by recent rains. Santorelli said this weekend's rain was expected to bring both flash flooding and small-stream flooding.

The Phoenix Fire Department said in a post on X that it rescued people from four vehicles on flooded streets on Friday night, while a fire captain in nearby Scottsdale said on Facebook that crews were rescuing a person in one vehicle on a flooded street when another vehicle carrying two people drove into the same waters and had to be rescued. Scottsdale fire Capt. Dave Folio said in a video posted on Facebook that just 2 inches (5 centimeters) of water can "sweep your vehicle off its wheels,'' and that the vehicles were in 3 to 4 feet (0.9 to 1.2 meters) of water.

Crews in Henderson, Nevada, conducted three swift-water rescues during a downpour in the city just outside of Las Vegas on Friday afternoon, a city spokesperson told media outlets. One person was rescued from the top of their vehicle after it became stuck in floodwaters, two people were rescued from a vehicle swept from the roadway by floodwaters, and a person in a wash was rescued but then went into cardiac arrest and died at a hospital.

In western Arizona, heavy rains on Friday in Bullhead City left water, rocks and debris on streets across the city and closed parks, the city said in Facebook posts.