Flash flooding forced mandatory evacuations across a wide stretch of the American Southwest on Sunday, November 1, as a punishing series of Pacific storm systems drove the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, to within a foot of a catastrophic 1911 flood mark — while helicopter rescues unfolded in Sedona, Arizona, and Election Day voting centers in Colorado were forced to relocate to higher ground.

The San Juan River crested at 16.81 feet (5.1 m) at approximately 11 p.m. Sunday — a significant flood stage, and less than one foot below the 1911 crest of approximately 17.8 feet (5.4 m) that wiped out most of Pagosa, according to the Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office. At its worst, forecasters had projected a crest as high as 21.87 feet (6.7 m) — a level that would have shattered all known records and rendered most of the town inaccessible. The river began receding Monday, offering a measure of relief while communities from New Mexico to Utah assessed continuing damage.

Why Each New Storm Hits Harder: The Pre-Saturation Trap

The events of November 1 are not a single flood. They are the latest in a series of compounding strikes — and the physics of that compounding is what separates this autumn from any ordinary rainy season.

When soil absorbs water up to its maximum field capacity — a hydrological state called Antecedent Moisture Condition III, or AMC III — subsequent precipitation has nowhere to go. Instead of infiltrating the ground, nearly all of it becomes immediate surface runoff, flowing directly into rivers. The National Weather Service estimated that as much as four inches (10 centimeters) of rain could fall across the Southwest through Monday. Under normal conditions, much of that would soak into the ground. Under AMC III conditions — which the Four Corners region has sustained through weeks of successive storms — virtually none of it does.

The San Juan watershed had already seen a major flood on record in October 2025. It flooded again in October 2026, with the river reaching 15.02 feet (4.6 m) near Pagosa Springs on October 23. The evacuation order from that event had only just been lifted when authorities reimposed it Saturday night, October 31, as yet another system bore down.

“It’s the second flood that really gets you, you know, because everything is completely saturated,” one resident in the region observed during the prior-week flooding.

A “Super Duper” El Niño That Has Not Yet Peaked

The scientific community has given this autumn’s relentless wet pattern a specific cause: an unusually intense El Niño event that is supercharging the moisture content of Pacific storm systems and steering them directly into the Southwest interior.

El Niño — the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a global climate phenomenon that emerges from variations in Pacific Ocean surface temperatures — can happen irregularly every few years. But scientists say the current event is exceptional in scale.

“We’ve had super El Niños in the past, but this is a super duper El Niño,” said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources and the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, noted in October that the storms this year were reaching an intensity not previously seen. “The likelihood of big precipitation in the Southwest interior does go up this time of year, but we’re seeing it to a degree we actually haven’t seen before,” Swain said. He warned in spring that El Niño could bring extreme rain to the Southwest — a forecast that has proved accurate.

The mechanism is direct: El Niño warms Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, adding moisture to the atmosphere and shifting wind patterns toward the southern United States. These moisture-laden systems travel as atmospheric rivers — narrow, concentrated bands of water vapor that can carry as much water as passes through the mouth of the Mississippi River — before making landfall and encountering the Rocky Mountain terrain that forces them upward and wrings out their precipitation.

Over 20 trillion gallons of water fell on the Four Corners states and Nevada in the two weeks preceding the November 1 events, according to calculations by Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist.

Critically, this El Niño has not yet reached its peak. Meteorologist Randy Cerveny of Arizona State University noted that “the ocean temperatures are already warmer than they were, say, 100 years ago,” and warned that “we will see more of these particular events” as the cycle continues toward its December peak.

Pagosa Springs: Inside a Town That Narrowly Escaped

Pagosa Springs — a southwestern Colorado mountain town of roughly 2,000 residents, known for its geothermal hot springs and proximity to ski resorts — has become ground zero for the region’s compounding flood crisis. The town has flooded repeatedly since October 2025, with Sunday’s event coming days after residents had only just returned home from the prior week’s evacuation.

Town officials and the Colorado Incident Management Team urged anyone in low-lying areas along the San Juan, Rio Blanco, Navajo, and Piedra rivers to evacuate immediately, warning that emergency crews could be “extremely limited” during the worst of the flooding. The highway into town was closed to inbound traffic. A public health notice was issued after sewage was discharged into the San Juan River near the First Street bridge.

As of Monday, November 2, downtown Pagosa Springs remained under evacuation orders. Two bridges were closed — the US Highway 160/First Street Bridge, where significant erosion was documented near the town museum, and the Hot Springs Boulevard Bridge. Cellular service was down throughout town, Town Hall and the Community Center were closed, and 1,893 meters were without power in southwestern Colorado, according to La Plata Electric.

Katie German, the owner and chef of Bruin Coffee in Pagosa Springs, described watching her downtown flood. “I’m worried about my business, worried about my employees, definitely worried for everybody in this town,” she said Sunday. Her chief fear was the town’s sole bridge washing out, cutting off supply trucks carrying food and fuel. “This town — we’re a very, very tight community. We all help each other out.”

Arizona: Helicopters Over Sedona, Rescues in Tucson

In the picturesque red-rock tourist city of Sedona, Arizona, officials ordered residents near Oak Creek to leave immediately Sunday morning as floodwaters trapped multiple people in their homes. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs confirmed that state air rescue crews were deployed for rooftop evacuations, with helicopter rescues conducted in neighborhoods where water had inundated residences. At least 100 homes fell within the evacuation zone, and nearly 20 required emergency assistance for residents to relocate.

Longtime Sedona resident Michelle Grimm described watching Oak Creek rise to alarming levels. “I went out at eight this morning and I saw the bridge and I was like, ‘Oh, we’re in trouble,'” she said. “I’ve never seen them rescuing people with helicopters out of neighborhoods. I’ve never seen neighborhoods completely submerged in water.”

Yavapai County and the community of Camp Verde issued evacuation orders for residents along swollen rivers and creeks, including the Verde River, West Clear Creek, and Wet Beaver Creek. Evacuation orders extended to Rim Rock and Clarkdale. Gila County officials ordered the complete evacuation of Gisela, a community of several hundred residents along Tonto Creek, more than 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Sedona. The American Red Cross opened emergency shelters in Sedona, Camp Verde, Show Low, Prescott, and Payson.

The scale of the event reached even into Tucson, some 230 miles (370 km) south of Sedona, where swift-water rescue teams pulled residents from cars stranded in flooded washes. Rain fell nearly nonstop in Flagstaff, overwhelming storm drains and flooding local roads. Flagstaff police were searching for a man who had slipped into fast-moving floodwaters “and was not seen resurfacing.”

In the Pinetop-Lakeside area, “manhole covers are popping up all over” and residents reported sewage backing up into homes, the regional sanitary district announced.

National Weather Service meteorologist Aaron Hardin in Tucson summarized the scale of the precipitation: “We are getting two or three months of rain in a span of a couple of days.”

No deaths or serious injuries were confirmed in connection with the November 1 flooding in Arizona at the time of reporting, though searches were ongoing.

A Region Already Staggered: Weeks of Prior Damage

Sunday’s events arrived on top of an autumn of accumulated devastation. In late October, a separate round of storms drove severe flooding throughout the same Four Corners region — where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah converge — producing rooftop rescues, road and bridge collapses, and emergency declarations across a dozen Colorado counties.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis had already declared disaster emergencies in 12 counties and authorized National Guard deployment. On October 31, Polis formally requested a presidential disaster declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Colorado had separately requested $65 million in federal relief from the prior storm system.

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham warned that infrastructure damage in her state alone could total $300 million, and the federal government granted a partial emergency declaration for New Mexico. In San Juan County, New Mexico, emergency teams — including out-of-state swift-water crews — rescued between 200 and 300 residents in the prior week’s flooding. At least one death was reported in New Mexico during that event.

The southern Utah city of Hurricane declared an emergency after flooding damaged more than 100 homes and RVs. The Navajo Nation Police Department reported rescuing 30 people from flooded homes, and the Hopi Tribe declared a state of emergency due to damage to roads, bridges, homes, and infrastructure.

By Monday, the San Juan River was still rising downstream in New Mexico, where new mandatory evacuations were ordered for residents in San Juan County, including Navajo communities. The Rio Chama in New Mexico’s Rio Arriba County remained under a flood warning through Tuesday.

Election Day Disrupted: Floods Move Polling Sites

In an unusual intersection of natural disaster and civic life, the flooding reached the ballot box. With Election Day scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, Colorado election officials scrambled to keep voting accessible to displaced residents.

Pagosa Springs saw its two primary voting locations shuttered: the Ross Aragon Community Center Voter Center and the Pagosa Springs Town Hall Ballot Drop Box were both closed due to the flood emergency. Officials relocated voting operations to new locations — the Archuleta County Courthouse at 109 Harmon Park Drive, the Archuleta County Election Office at 305 Village Drive, and a mobile ballot drop box at 10 Solomon Drive.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office set up alternative voting arrangements for all Pagosa Springs residents displaced by the flooding. Those who had not yet voted would be able to visit any voter center across the state to request a replacement ballot. Those returning mail ballots could drop them at any Colorado ballot drop box or voter center by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Those who vote in person outside their home county can cast ballots only for statewide races. All voter resources are available through Colorado Newsline and the Colorado Secretary of State’s website.

Voting centers will remain open in La Plata County, though county offices are operating under adjusted hours.

What Comes Next: El Niño Still Building

By Monday morning, some rivers in the region had begun to recede, and the National Weather Service forecast a drier pattern for coming days. “Most of the rain is winding down. The next few days look drier,” said David Byers, a meteorologist with the NWS office in Grand Junction.

But scientists caution that the forces driving this autumn’s extraordinary precipitation are not retreating. The current El Niño event is expected to peak in December, after which its effects typically persist for months. The combination of human-caused ocean warming and the natural El Niño cycle means the atmospheric moisture reservoir feeding Southwest storms is larger than at any point in the modern record.

Swain characterized the situation with notable directness: storms that scientists predicted in the spring, based on El Niño forecasts, have materialized largely as expected. The warning was issued; the flooding arrived. The question for communities like Pagosa Springs — still under evacuation as of Monday, with bridges closed and cellular service down — is what infrastructure investments can reduce their vulnerability to a system that is now demonstrably capable of producing near-1911-level floods from a storm that, in drier conditions, might have produced only minor flooding.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the Southwest flooding so much in 2026, when this region is usually dry?

An unusually intense El Niño event is warming Pacific Ocean surface temperatures to levels not seen in modern records, loading the atmosphere with excess moisture that is then transported inland by atmospheric rivers — concentrated bands of water vapor that can carry as much water as the Mississippi River. When those systems encounter the Rocky Mountain terrain, the moisture is forced upward and released as heavy rain. Critically, soils across the Four Corners region have been saturated by successive storms since October 2025, meaning new rain has nowhere to soak in and flows directly into rivers instead. Scientists call this “antecedent moisture” compounding, and it is why each successive storm produces worse flooding than its rainfall totals alone would suggest. Scientists say this El Niño is intensifying Southwest storms beyond modern records.

How close did the San Juan River actually come to the 1911 flood record, and what would surpassing it have meant?

The river crested at 16.81 feet (5.1 m) on Sunday night — roughly one foot below the 1911 catastrophic crest of approximately 17.8 feet (5.4 m) that destroyed most of the original town of Pagosa. Forecasters had warned of a possible crest as high as 21.87 feet (6.7 m), which would have been nearly four feet above the 1911 mark and left most of the town inaccessible. The Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office had warned explicitly that this would constitute “a potentially catastrophic flood event.” The actual crest avoided the worst outcome — though two bridges remain closed and downtown Pagosa Springs was still under evacuation as of Monday, per the latest town update.

When will this flooding end, and is the El Niño expected to continue?

The National Weather Service forecast a drier pattern for the days immediately following November 2, and some rivers in the region had begun receding by Monday morning. However, the current El Niño event is expected to peak in December 2026, meaning atmospheric conditions favorable for intense storm systems targeting the Southwest are likely to persist for months. Arizona State University meteorologist Randy Cerveny noted that Pacific Ocean temperatures have not yet reached their peak and warned that more events of this kind should be expected. Scientists warn El Niño peaks in December, meaning communities like Pagosa Springs — which have now been flooded multiple times in a single autumn — face the prospect of additional events before the season ends.

What should displaced Colorado voters do to make sure their votes count on Election Day?

Colorado residents displaced by the flooding who have not yet voted will be able to visit any voter center anywhere in the state on Election Day, November 3, to request a replacement ballot. If they can vote in person at a center in their home county (Archuleta or La Plata), they can vote for all races. Voters who cast ballots outside their home county can vote only for statewide races. Those who already received a mail ballot can return it to any ballot drop box or voter center in Colorado by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Updated voter center and drop-box locations for Pagosa Springs are detailed in the Pagosa Springs Nov. 2 update: the Archuleta County Courthouse (109 Harmon Park Drive), the Archuleta County Election Office (305 Village Drive), and a mobile drop box at 10 Solomon Drive. Full voter resources for displaced Coloradans are available through Colorado Newsline and the Colorado Secretary of State.