Drought — South Central Mountains, New Mexico

2024-10-01 to 2024-10-31 · South Central Mountains, New Mexico

Event narrative

Localized severe drought conditions returned to the far southeast portion of the zone due to a record warm October.

Wider weather episode

Overall, October was record warm month for northern and central NM with dry conditions during the first half of the month. The 2nd half of the month was much wetter, especially for eastern New Mexico with Roswell observing record rainfall for a 24-hour period on October 19th resulting in catastrophic flooding across the city. This rainfall resulted in the removal of severe drought across Roswell and southern Chaves County.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1216590. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.