Flood — La Plata, Colorado

2025-10-11 to 2025-10-16 · near Vallecito, La Plata, Colorado

Event narrative

Heavy rain due to the remnants of Tropical Storm Priscilla falling between the evening of October 9th and October 11th, resulted in flooding along Vallecito Creek, which began rising around midnight on October 11th. Vallecito Creek crested at 1245 MST on October 11 to 5.99 feet and 7100 cfs, which is a new record historical peak, beating the previous record of 5.98 feet set on September 6 of 1970. The flood wave routed through the system through the evening of October 11th with streamflows dropping about 2 feet from the peak around 2200 on October 11th. There were 7 road closures, 600 to 700 residences were evacuated in Vallecito and there were 11 high water rescues in addition to threatened bridges. Debris was seen moving down the river including trees and objects from people's homes including a hot tub. Vallecito Creek remained elevated with a second crest of 4.38 feet around 800 MST on October 14 in response to another period of locally heavy rain and increased rates on October 13. The second flood wave routed through the system by 300 MST on October 16, before subsiding below bankfull levels. This second wave carved out a completely new channel moving at 3000 cfs.

Wider weather episode

Between October 10-14, 2025, southwest Colorado experienced prolonged periods of rain and some of the largest multiday rainfall totals on record with rainfall accumulations between 3 and 8 inches, with locally higher amounts across the San Juan Mountains. Remnants from two tropical storms supplied anomalous moisture across the region, with minimal break between events. The first round of heavy rainfall resulted in flooding across La Plata and Archuleta counties from decaying Tropical Storm Priscilla beginning October 10 and continuing throughout the day on the 11th. There was a break in rain across the area on October 12, followed by a second round of heavy rain from October 13-14, associated with moisture from remnant Tropical Storm Raymond. Without much time between systems, the hydrologic response of the second storm was much faster than the first. Flooding across several counties in southwest Colorado spiked twice within the 5-day window, leading to major flooding and near record peaks along the Vallecito, Piedra and San Juan watersheds that lingered through the 16th before water levels receded. Numerous debris flows and rockslides also occurred as a result of the abundant rainfall.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.4703, -107.5558)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1298370. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.