Flood Watch — Southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains; Espanola Valley was recorded by Global Incident Tracker on Wednesday, 16 September 2026 at 18:34 UTC. The event is classified as a flood incident with a severity rating of Severe, and was detected through the US National Weather Service (NWS).
Flood Watch issued September 16 at 12:34PM MDT until September 17 at 6:00AM MDT by NWS Albuquerque NM * WHAT...Flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be possible. * WHERE...Espanola Valley and Southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains. This includes areas near and downstream of the Frijoles wildfire burn scar. * WHEN...Through late tonight. * IMPACTS...Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - Deep monsoon moisture will continue to move into western and central New Mexico, helping numerous showers and thunderstorms to develop. Stronger storms will be capable of producing heavy rainfall rates of one to two inches per hour with some areas receiving multiple rounds of storms. This will be too fast and heavy for the ground to adequately absorb, leading to excessive runoff and fl
Where this happened
The incident is located in United States (North America), whose capital is Washington, D.C.. Historically, United States is most affected by hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. You can follow every incident recorded in this country, updated live, on the United States incident tracker.
Approximate coordinates of the reported event are 37.100°, -95.700°. The marker on the map above shows this position; for news-derived reports the location reflects the place named in media coverage and may represent a district or city rather than an exact site.
Understanding flood events
River, flash, urban and coastal flooding events. Flood damage depends less on total rainfall than on how fast water arrives and where it has to go. Flash floods in urban areas can rise within minutes because sealed surfaces stop absorption, while river floods build over days and allow more warning time.
How severity is rated
Global Incident Tracker rates every event on a four-step scale — Minor, Moderate, Severe and Extreme — derived from the source signal: earthquake magnitude, official GDACS alert colour, or the volume of independent media reporting for news-derived incidents. This event is currently rated Severe. Ratings can change as more information becomes available, and a rating is a monitoring signal rather than an official government assessment.
Safety guidance for flood situations
- Never walk or drive through floodwater — 15 cm of moving water can knock you down and 60 cm can float a car.
- Move to higher floors or higher ground early; do not wait for water to reach you.
- Switch off electricity at the mains if water is entering the building and it is safe to reach.
- Treat all floodwater as contaminated: wash hands, boil drinking water and clean wounds.
- Follow only official instructions from local authorities and emergency services — this page is a monitoring record, not an emergency alert.
Data and verification
This record was generated automatically from the US National Weather Service (NWS) and de-duplicated against our archive. Early reports for any incident can be revised: locations get refined, magnitudes are recalculated and impact figures change as assessments arrive. We deliberately do not publish casualty numbers unless an official source states them. The original source report is linked at the top of this page.
Keep watching the situation on our live world incident map, browse every floods we track on the Flood tracker, or see today's global picture on the incidents today page.
Timeline and sources
Official warning
Issued by U.S. National Weather Service. A warning or forecast describes a hazard; on its own it is not a report that harm occurred.
How statuses are decided · the number of reports is never treated as confirmation.
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· received · event time 16 Sep 2026, 18:34 UTCFirst report Official warning
First recorded from U.S. National Weather Service.
Times are when this site received each report, in UTC; the event time is shown where the source gave one. Copies of one syndicated story count as one report.
Conditions at the time
No rainfall was recorded that day, and the temperature peaked at 37°C. Conditions are shown for context only — they do not establish a cause.
Weather reanalysis for this location and date via Open-Meteo.