Flash Flood — De Baca, New Mexico

2025-04-26 to 2025-04-27 · near Ft Sumner, De Baca, New Mexico

Event narrative

Heavy rainfall from severe thunderstorms resulted in 2.5 feet of water flowing over State Highway 20 from mile marker 37 to 41 leading to the closure of the highway.

Wider weather episode

A backdoor front pushed through northeast NM during the morning hours of April 25th stalling across east central NM midday. Additionally, a dryline backed west into the southeast plains of New Mexico. These surface boundaries allowed higher low level Gulf moisture. Daytime heating, combined with the higher moisture, lift from the aforementioned boundaries and an upper level shortwave overhead and stronger vertical wind shear, resulted in the development of discrete severe storms across far east central NM. These storms produced large hail up to 2.75 inches in diameter. Training thunderstorms between Tucumcari and Clovis resulted in some flash flooding on State Highway 275. Upslope easterly behind and north of the backdoor front resulted in the development of additional strong to severe storms across the northeast and east central plains during the overnight hours of April 25th into April 26th. Some of the storms resulted in quarter size hail and flash flooding in Fort Sumner. Rainfall amounts of around 4 inches were observed in town. Storms exited into West Texas around sunrise April 26th. Another round of discrete supercells developed along and east of a stalled surface front across the eastern highlands and plains and ahead of an upper low moving into California. These supercells brought large hail as well as producing brief tornadoes south of Fort Sumner and north and northeast of Roswell. Storms dissipated during the late evening hours with the loss of daytime heating.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.3771, -104.2490)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1239160. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.