PROJECT ALERT NOTICE (AZ) Flooding in Arizona and New Mexico

Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 12:20:19 EDT

Summary: Major flooding in Upper Gila River and Paria River Basins in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.

Field Office reports for the recent flooding in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.

Emmet McGuire wrote: we had several high flow and flood events starting last Sunday, Sept 9, 2013.

Santa Cruz River Basin

09486800, Altar Wash near Three Points, AZ peaked at about 5200 cfs on Sept 10 at 0145. Hanna Coy and Kurt Ehrenberg made 4 measurements late in the recession on Sept 10.

09487000, Brawley Wash near Three Points, AZ peaked at about 7500 cfs on Sept. 10 at 0400. Lee Simons and Matt Garcia made two measurements late in the recession on Sept. 10. The flow downstream of this gage went overbank damaging some houses in a sub-division.

Whitewater-Baldy Burn area near Glenwood, NM

09442980, Mineral Creek near Glenwood, NM. There were two events with the first on Sept 13 and a second larger event of about 868 cfs at the peak on Sept 15 at 0041 that cause some road closures due to flooding and isolated residents in their homes.

09443800, Whitewater Creek at Catwalk NRT, near Glenwood, NM. There were two events with the first on Sept. 13 and a second larger event of about 13,000 cfs at the peak at 2316 on Sept. 14. This event caused major downstream flooding including damage to homes, road closures, and isolated residents in their homes.

Upper Gila River Basin

High flow from the Whitewater Baldy burn area in New Mexico caused high flow in the San Francisco and Gila Rivers.

San Francisco River:

09444500, San Francisco River at Clifton, AZ gage crested on Sept. 15 at 1045. Discharge at the crest was about 27,200 cfs. Discharge measurements were made on the recession with the computed discharge from the first measurement at 23,200 cfs. There are reports that the flow went overbank on the south side of Clifton causing some road flooding. ADOT closed the floodgates during the peak of this event.

09448500, Gila River at Head of Valley, nr Solomon AZ. The river peaked at about 28,600 cfs on Sept. 15 at 1630. Staff from the Tucson Field office are at the gage today (Sept. 16) and made a recessional measurement with the computed Q at 10,300 cfs at 0915.

0943200, Gila River at Virden, NM, Discharge measurements were made on Sept. 11 from a high flow event that started on Sept 10. The river peaked at about 3800 at 0800 on Sept. 11.

09444200, Blue River near Clifton, AZ. Starting on Sept. 14 two high flow events occurred with the peak of the larger event at about 10,000 cfs on Sept. 15 at 0015. An indirect survey is scheduled for this gage.

High flow at the Virden and all downstream gages are again expected from the Sept. 14 flood event in the Whitewater-Baldy Burn. Staff from the Tucson Field office will be making recessional measurements at selected sites.




Paria River Basin
Jon Mason wrote: we're still picking up the pieces, but I think this was likely the biggest flow on the Paria since 1958. The current rating only goes up to a stage of 11.30 feet which corresponds to a flow of 6,600 cfs. Wednesday night the right bank radar recorded a peak of 12.66 feet and the stilling well a peak of 13.12 feet. These are both off of the rating, but doing a back of the envelope extension of the rating it looks like the peak could have been 10,000 cfs or more.