Matt Lanza

Deadly flooding in New Mexico, street flooding in Chicago, and more flooding risks in the East today

In brief: Deadly flooding hit parts of New Mexico yesterday, while significant street flooding occurred in Chicago. Flooding risks should cover the Carolinas through New Jersey today, with a focus on Virginia perhaps. The tropics remain calm.

Note: Most of the data in these posts originates from NOAA and NWS. Many of the taxpayer-funded forecasting tools described below come from NOAA-led research from research institutes that will have their funding eliminated in the current proposed 2026 budget. Access to these tools to inform and protect lives and property would not be possible without NOAA’s work and continuous research efforts.

More flooding, more places

If you live in Ruidoso, New Mexico, you have been under a flash flooding warning over 25 times in the past year and nearly 10 times this year. Last June, the South Fork Fire devastated parts of that region, destroying nearly 1,500 structures. As is often the case after a wildfire, debris flows are serious issues. Basically, all that now loose ground becomes mud and debris and rushes down hills and mountains into rivers and imperils communities. In other words, it’s a looming disaster after a disaster. After the Thomas Fire in 2017-18 near Santa Barabra, CA, a debris flow in January in Montecito killed 23 people.

Ruidoso is situated in a location that tends to get summertime thunderstorms during the monsoon and just generally sits in a place where rising air and terrain effects can enhance precipitation. Ruidoso averages nearly 22 inches of precipitation annually, whereas Albuquerque averages less than 10 inches. Yesterday, rainfall of about 2 inches in an hour fell within Ruidoso, with radar estimating higher amounts just west of town.

Radar estimates of rainfall yesterday near Ruidoso, NM. (NOAA NSSL)

All that water pushed through the community. You can see just how quickly this happened. The water rapidly rose around 4 PM and by 8 PM, the river was basically back to normal. It happened essentially in a “flash.”

(USGS)

The river gauge at Hollywood, just downstream from the town of Ruidoso is what you’re looking at above. The river gauge observations are shown below.

River gauge on the Rio Ruidoso at Hollywood showing a rapid rise of 20 feet yesterday as flash flooding commenced downstream from the town. (NOAA)

That’s a 20 foot rise in minutes. I’m not going to embed any other video here out of respect for many of our Texas readers still grappling with our own disaster. But you can search Google News, Twitter, or BlueSky for “Ruidoso” and find numerous pictures and videos. The flooding killed three, including two children and caused widespread damage. It also appears that this is the new flood of record for this area.

Chicago flooding

A slow-moving thunderstorm with torrential rain sat over the urban core of Chicago last night dumping 2 to 5 inches in short order. Rates of nearly 2 inches per hour were recorded right near the West Loop, and some other gauges had even higher rates. Most impressively, over 5 inches of rain fell in 90 minutes near Garfield Park.

Radar rainfall estimates near Chicago yesterday. Rates of 5 inches in 90 minutes were reported near the West Loop and just east of Garfield Park. (NOAA NSSL)

Damage was mainly due to cars in flooded roads it appears, though water did come close to getting into some homes. No deaths have been reported as of this morning.

Both southeast New Mexico and Chicagoland were in marginal risks (1/4) of excessive rain and flooding yesterday.

More flooding to come?

Yes, more flooding is likely. Today’s focus will be in Virginia. Much of the southeast half of Virginia has seen 1 to 3 inches of rain in the last 3 days, with the places just east of the Danville area hit by 4 to 7 inches of rain due to Chantal’s remnants the other night.

A moderate risk (3/4) is posted for much of interior Virginia and extreme northern North Carolina for Wednesday. (NOAA WPC)

Much of Virginia, including Danville, Richmond, and Lynchburg are encased in a moderate risk (3/4) of excessive rainfall today. High-resolution weather modeling, such as that from the Storm Prediction Center’s HREF model do show the potential for 2 to 5 inches of rain today in pockets across Virginia, as well as perhaps into New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, or North Carolina.

The SPC’s HREF model and its probability matched mean product show the risk of as much as 4 or 5 inches of rain in isolated spots today from the Carolinas into Virginia and Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey. (NOAA SPC)

Since it seems the footprint definitely goes outside the moderate risk, folks in the slight risk areas will want to be on guard for some rapid onset street flooding today, from the Carolinas north to New Jersey. That HREF model has a thing for Baltimore today, so that may be an area to watch too. But the moderate risk area seems to have the highest probability and highest risks of seeing more widespread activity.

The risk of flooding continues into tomorrow, though the focus may shift into the Plains or Upper Midwest.

Tropics

Model support for something loosely organized continues next week in the northeast Gulf. But if we’re really being honest, there’s not a whole heck of a lot to zero in on at this point. It’s currently just a small signal among some white noise. No news is good news.

A little on the Gulf next week, as well as ongoing thoughts on mitigation efforts in Texas and flooding risk in the Mid-Atlantic

In brief: The tropics remain calm, but we’re watching the Gulf next week — sort of. We have the latest on Texas flooding and some thoughts on mitigation. Also, flooding is possible in the Mid-Atlantic and New England today and/or tomorrow.

Note: Most of the data in these posts originates from NOAA and NWS. Many of the taxpayer-funded forecasting tools described below come from NOAA-led research from research institutes that will have their funding eliminated in the current proposed 2026 budget. Access to these tools to inform and protect lives and property would not be possible without NOAA’s work and continuous research efforts.

Tropical Atlantic

First off, there’s nothing at all to report in the tropical Atlantic today. We look quiet for the next week or so.

I think the next area to watch will probably be in the Gulf next week. A little piece of “energy” (or mid-level vorticity…spin in the atmosphere around 10,000 feet) may pinwheel from an area of weekend thunderstorms in the Mid-Atlantic, off the Southeast coast early next week, and into the northeast Gulf midweek.

Potential area of weak “spin” in the northeast Gulf next weekend. (Tropical Tidbits)

This would not be a highly likely pathway to development, but we have absolutely seen storms do this before, most notably in recent years probably Hurricane Barry back in 2019. The seeds for that storm were actually planted in Kansas with some thunderstorms that eventually arrived in the Gulf and spun into a storm that became 2019’s Barry. While Barry wasn’t a particularly strong storm it was loaded with moisture and ended up being the wettest on record for Arkansas and caused widespread flooding in Louisiana and over a half-billion in damage. So they can happen.

In this case, we will have to watch how this evolves in the coming days; it’s possible it ends up too close to land to develop, it ends up actually over land, it never emerges in the Gulf at all, or it ends up taking a farther south pathway to boost the odds of development. Current modeling suggests the “too close to land” scenario is most likely, but we’ll see. Either way, we have a long time to watch this, and it’s nothing to worry over today.

Texas flooding update

A lot of news coming out of Texas with respect to the impacts, response, and recovery to the Texas flooding catastrophe. I strongly recommend following The Texas Tribune’s coverage, as they know the state better than most and will have good quality information. I want to home in on one story about the Texas Senate declining to take up a bill that would have bolstered flood protection in the Hill Country and Flash Flood Alley. House Bill 13 would have provided about a half-billion dollars for numerous improvements to public safety communication, alerting, and sirens in places, similar to those that have tornado sirens. The bill was proposed by a GOP representative, Ken King from Canadian, TX, the area devastated by the Smokehouse Creek fire in 2024. There is one quote in particular that was made during the debate on this bill that I want to highlight.

Tony Tinderhort, an Arlington, TX Republican said this: “This shouldn’t be about anything other than the fact that it’s a half a billion dollars. This is probably one of the most simple votes we should be able to take today. It’s that this interoperability council is going to spend money to try and get these departments to be able to talk together.”

It’s easy to look at things in hindsight and become outraged, but importantly, I think this is a comment that speaks volumes about priorities among some legislators, not just in Texas but nationwide. First off, let’s be clear, this bill would not have prevented or mitigated this catastrophe in any way. It would not have been implemented until September. Secondly, even if the build out were completed, there is no way to know if it would have saved lives. Secondly, according to a January piece, Texas had a $28 billion surplus and $24 billion in the rainy day fund coming into this year. The proposed bill would have eaten up about 1.5 percent of the budget surplus.

When thinking of disasters, the easy thing to do is to throw up your hands and say “weather happens” and “bad things happen sometimes.” But time and time and time again it has been proven that preparedness and adequate ways to disseminate warnings save lives. Investing in preparedness is like investing in your health or home or whatever else you want to invest in. The phrase “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” originated from Benjamin Franklin, a relatively libertarian leaning individual that knew a thing or two about science and how the natural world works. That was almost 300 years ago. Much like Franklin’s legacy, it has stood the test of time. When we have leaders constantly badgering others about investing in preparedness because of sticker shock, the question has to be, what amount of damage or loss of life has to occur for them to get on board with improving societal preparedness? That’s an important question to ask representatives and ensure they’re looking out for their constituents and society and its best interest. This isn’t even a climate change conversation, it’s an every day one. It’s food for thought.

Flooding concerns this week

Much of the Mid-Atlantic is in a slight risk (2/4) for flash flooding today, with risks extending from Virginia into southern New England, including DC, Baltimore, Philly, and New York City.

A slight risk for excessive rains today extends from the Mid-Atlantic into New England. (NOAA WPC)

We should expect to see heavy thunderstorms late this afternoon and evening across the area. The combination of storms and very high atmospheric moisture levels will lead to the potential for excessive rainfall rates of 2 inches an hour. Flood watches are in effect for most of the slight risk region.

On Wednesday, the risk shifts to the south and east into mostly the Mid-Atlantic.

Wednesday’s rainfall risk is also slight (2/4) from North Carolina into southern New Jersey. (NOAA WPC)

Rainfall forecast totals from the probability matched mean product of the HREF model from NOAA are on the order of 1-2 inches area-wide with isolated pockets up to 4 inches in this general region. It’s in those isolated areas that flash flooding could be an issue.

HREF PMM precip forecast for the Mid-Atlantic region into southern New England showing lollipops of 2 to 4 inches in spots. (NOAA SPC)

Additional flooding risk exists in Arkansas and Missouri today, where radar is active with showers and storms already.

Chantal floods North Carolina further underscoring the need to monitor forecast adjustments ahead of events

In brief: Tropical Storm Chantal’s remnants brought record flooding to parts of North Carolina overnight. It will exit off to the north and east later today. More heavy rain is causing flooding issues in Texas again. And Saharan dust is choking the Atlantic for now. For those that rely on email subscriptions to the site, please see the bottom for changes taking shape today.

Note: Most of the data in these posts originates from NOAA and NWS. Many of the taxpayer-funded forecasting tools described below come from NOAA-led research from research institutes that will have their funding eliminated in the current proposed 2026 budget. Access to these tools to inform and protect lives and property would not be possible without NOAA’s work and continuous research efforts.

North Carolina Chantal flooding

Overnight, rains pounded portions of North Carolina and southern Virginia.

Rain totals ending this morning from the last 48 hours show as much as 7 to 10 inches parts of interior North Carolina between the Triangle and Triad. (NOAA NSSL)

The Eno and Haw Rivers in North Carolina are in record flooding territory as a result of the rains. The Haw River’s records go back to the 1970s and the record level of about 22.5 feet was set earlier this morning southwest of Durham near Bynum, NC.

A preliminary record flood on the Haw River southwest of Durham. (NOAA)

The Eno River just northwest of Durham absolutely obliterated the previous record by nearly 10 feet. Records appear to only go back to the 1980s, but there’s no questioning that this was a very impressive new record.

The Eno River broke its previous flood of record by nearly 10 feet outside Durham, NC. (NOAA)

This was another instance where people were left scrambling in the middle of the night to get to higher ground. And it’s another instance where warnings may have been meteorologically adequate but receiving them was tougher. This topic is going to justifiably take up a lot of oxygen in the coming days.

Much like the flooding in Texas, this flooding in North Carolina while somewhat predictable escalated very late in the game forecast-wise. Compare the 48 hour rainfall forecasts using the probability matched mean product from NOAA’s HREF model below. The 00z run, what I was looking at yesterday while writing my post showed minimal risk of significant flooding rains. The 12z run, which was available a couple hours later? Much more adequate.

NOAA’s HREF model caught onto the rains late in the game but once it did, it did a very good job. (NOAA SPC)

The HRRR model also caught on late in the game too, though its performance actually worsened somewhat as the day progressed.

I think that the takeaway here is we had another event that showed us how model guidance in flash flood situations needs to be monitored religiously leading up to the event. If you are an end user of weather forecast information in Texas or North Carolina and you assumed the forecast was settled by 9 AM on the day of the nighttime event that caused historic flooding, you missed out on a ton of critically valuable information. Weather forecasting is so much better in 2025 than it ever has been. Our tools rarely miss something major at the end of the day. But they don’t always catch on 2 or 3 days ahead of time. But if you happen to use weather information to conduct your work or business or for public safety, it is absolutely critical that you monitor things closely leading up to any weather event. We can’t just assume anymore that it will be all’s well that ends well. And we can’t just check out on any given day.

Texas flooding continues

Another round of heavy rain impacted portions of Texas overnight, with upwards of 4 to 8 inches of rain falling in some small areas west of Killeen, farther north than the weekend’s rainfall.

Rainfall estimates for the last 24 hours ending this morning. (NOAA NSSL)

No major incidents have been reported yet, but flooding did occur in the Killeen area.

Rains are expected to continue through the day in spots. The overall weather pattern responsible for a lot of the rain and flooding is beginning to slowly unwind though, so as the week progresses, storminess should begin to ease up some.

Moderate risk (level 3/4) of flash flooding exists north and west of Kerrville in much of Hill Country today. (NOAA WPC)

Still the moderate risk for excessive rainfall is in place, as we still have some ingredients available for hefty rainfall. It is possible that heavy rains will disrupt recovery efforts, and all people in the region responding to Thursday night’s disaster should remain on guard for heavy rainfall and quickly changing conditions today.

Tropical Atlantic

Quiet in the Atlantic, with Chantal’s remnants continuing to lift northward up the Eastern Seaboard. Those will exit off the coast of New Jersey today and out to sea. Locally heavy downpours could occur in spots from the Chesapeake Bay into the Philadelphia and Trenton areas. A slight risk (2/4) for heavy rainfall exists there.

Forecast rain totals in excess of 4 inches are possible in Delmarva today through Wednesday from Chantal’s remnants and a humid, warm weather pattern. (Pivotal Weather)

Beyond Chantal I think the Atlantic looks quiet this week. We have a lot of Saharan dust in place, and that should help suppress any development. After this week, the next area to watch may be in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico next week. A handful of ensemble members and AI ensemble members from various model suites indicate some potential there in about 10 days or so. Nothing to worry about at this time.

Saharan dust is choking most of the Atlantic basin right now, which should help limit any tropical concerns over the next 7 to 10 days there. (University of Wisconsin Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies)

Last note, our housekeeping update:

We will be migrating our email newsletter over to the Substack platform today. If you currently subscribe to The Eyewall via email, your email should roll over to our Substack without you having to do anything. We understand a few people have various concerns about the Substack platform, and some of the content posted there by other writers. If you decide to unsubscribe from emails, we understand. But the benefits of this route outweigh the potential costs. The primary issue is that WordPress caps our email subscribers, and the process to manage an account is not user-friendly. For a site with a limited budget such as ours, this is the best way to ensure the continued delivery of an email newsletter with our content. We will still continue to post here at The Eyewall.com, but updates will not be sent via email from here.

Also: Nothing at all is changing with Space City Weather. So for our Houston readers, our site, email, and annual fundraiser is not changing! This only applies to The Eyewall.

We hope that this will offer us the flexibility to do more things, offer more options, more content, and a better overall user experience as time goes on. Thanks for your support!

Chantal makes landfall near Myrtle Beach and now moving inland as a rainmaker

In brief: After yesterday’s post on Texas, we wanted to raise a couple additional points after some reactions. Plus, TS Chantal made landfall near Myrtle Beach and is now a flooding threat for North Carolina.

Texas comments

There remains a lot to unpack still after yesterday. The reaction to our post covered a rather broad spectrum, and I just want to emphasize a couple points.

1.) We have been on record as saying the proposed budget cuts to NOAA would be disastrous. We’ve had people throwing that back at us and saying “Wait a minute…” The reality is that there are a handful of key ways the budget cuts will impact offices, alerts, and warnings. First, the primary current cuts have led to understaffing in many offices. Relative to other offices, the NWS office in San Antonio/Austin is fairly well off. For example, they currently have seven more full-time staff members than the neighboring Houston office.

They are missing the warning coordination meteorologist, who primarily focuses on building understanding of warnings on what we call “blue sky” days. That work gets done before tragedies occur. That position has only been vacant for a couple months, so it likely did not play a role here. But it will if it is not filled in the coming weeks.

But the office has most of their meteorologist positions filled, as well as most of their hydrologists. From the warning perspective in real time, this plus the timeliness of issued warnings is why I don’t believe staffing was an issue here.

2.) Weather balloon launch cuts probably had little to no impact on this specific forecast. Again, I want to emphasize that the launch of the evening balloon at Del Rio was crucial to understanding the potential severity of the event, and this emphasizes that fully funding and staffing NWS offices to be able to launch balloons is critically important. The takeaway here is that funding NOAA leads to better understanding of unfolding weather, forecast weather, and real-time decision-making.

3.) Weather model forecasts were imperfect ahead of time, but as the event closed in, they performed as designed and did better. Why is this? Because of NOAA-led research. The HRRR and HREF models have been instrumental in improving our understanding of localized (or mesoscale) forecasts like this. We have a long way to go to perfect those forecasts, but they more often than not do their job in guiding the horses (meteorologists) to water. How will we improve those guidance tools more? By fully funding NOAA research. How will we reduce false alarms during potential high impact weather? By fully funding NOAA research. It comes back to that in the end.

4.) We need to understand the limits of predictability in these scenarios. Models often tell us about the potential for a high-end event. But in Texas in particular the specific placement of a high-end event is extremely tough to pin down. A few miles makes a world of difference, and I think it’s evident that we need to build some pad into rainfall forecasts beyond what we’re currently doing. These are works that are accomplished by having NWS meteorologists working together with local emergency managers to help improve knowledge and refine trigger points for warnings. Again, this points back to fully funding and staffing NOAA and NWS offices to accomplish this critical work. The private sector cannot fill this gap at all.

For the families dealing with unimaginable tragedy right now, none of this matters. They deserve time, privacy, and space to grieve. But for those not directly impacted, it’s important for us to push this dialogue to try to play a small part in our broader understanding of the problems and realities. And it’s important to do it immediately because those on the outside have short memories. But I again want to share our condolences to all those affected in some way.

Tropical Storm Chantal

Chantal made landfall earlier this morning near Myrtle Beach as a fairly spicy little tropical storm with winds of about 50 mph. We had a handful of gusts to 48, 54, and 56 mph between Bald Head Island in North Carolina and Murrells Inlet just south of Myrtle Beach, SC.

Chantal is rolling inland across North Carolina this morning. (Tropical Tidbits)

The main threat going forward from Chantal will be heavy rainfall. Flood Watches are now posted for the Piedmont in North Carolina and include Raleigh, Durham, and the Triad, as well as Fayetteville and Goldsboro to the south and east. Model forecasts suggest an average of 1 to 4 inches of rain, but depending on exactly how quickly Chantal pushes northward and weakens, there could be isolated pockets of 4 to 6 inches in spots, leading to some more serious flash flooding.

A slight risk (2/4) for excessive rainfall and flash flooding is posted for much of central North Carolina. (NOAA WPC)

Given what has happened lately, I think it would be important for folks in central North Carolina, particularly in flood-prone areas to be acutely aware of conditions through the day.

Chantal will dissipate over North Carolina later today, but some locally heavy rainfall could extend north into parts of Virginia, Delmarva, or even southern New Jersey tonight and tomorrow.

We don’t see anything else on the horizon right now in the Atlantic, but as always we’ll keep watching.

Housekeeping reminder

A lot of you have reached out to request ways to support our work beyond just reading, and we have (to this point) resisted that, other than various small sponsorships last hurricane season. And we are grateful for the interest many potential sponsors have shown this year too! However, we are going to try something else this year: subscriptions.

To be abundantly clear, our daily content will remain free, never paywalled, and that is not going to change as long as we operate this site. So, forever. This year, however, we will give readers who wish to support the site the option to do so at a modest cost, as well as a premium option for people who want a little bit more access. We will have more information on this soon.

The first step in this process is to migrate our email newsletter over to the Substack platform. If you currently subscribe to The Eyewall via email, your email should roll over to our Substack without you having to do anything. We understand a few people have various concerns about the Substack platform, and some of the content posted there by other writers. If you decide to unsubscribe from emails, we understand. But the benefits of this route outweigh the potential costs. The primary issue is that WordPress caps our email subscribers, and the process to manage an account is not user-friendly. For a site with a limited budget such as ours, this is the best way to ensure the continued delivery of an email newsletter with our content. We will still continue to post here at The Eyewall.com, but updates will not be sent via email from here.

Also: Nothing at all is changing with Space City Weather. So for our Houston readers, our site, email, and annual fundraiser is not changing! This only applies to The Eyewall.

Our target date for this migration of The Eyewall newsletter to Substack is tomorrow, Monday, July 7th. We hope that this will offer us the flexibility to do more things, offer more options, more content, and a better overall user experience as time goes on. Thanks for your support!