A New Mexico dam neared failure Tuesday as remnants of Hurricane Polo moved north from Mexico, threatening flash flooding across a broad swath of the Southwest, Plains and Midwest. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued multiple Flash Flood Emergencies in southern New Mexico, including one covering the Hatch Valley in Doña Ana County, where residents were urged to evacuate because of the imminent failure of McLeod Dam. Officials also warned residents in Hatch, Garfield, Salem, and Rincon to seek higher ground.
Schools in the Hatch Valley announced they would close Wednesday. Video posted to X on Tuesday night showed flooding in the Hatch area depicting stranded vehicles, water overflowing roads, and standing waters preventing travel. The flooding threat was expected to expand eastward and northward through the week as moisture from Polo combined with another tropical system in the eastern Pacific, Tropical Storm Rachel, and a slow-moving weather system over the Southwest.
A Flood Watch was in effect across 10 states Tuesday, with additional areas expected to be added in the coming days. The highest flood risk through Wednesday included parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The threat was expected to spread into the central United States later in the week, with heavy rain possible from Texas to Minnesota.
Nearly 80 trillion gallons of water could fall across the United States this week, according to weather forecasts. That amount would be equivalent to more than 122 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. Polo made landfall Monday night in Mexico's Baja California Sur before weakening from a hurricane Tuesday.
Its remnants were moving north toward the United States, carrying large amounts of tropical moisture. In southern New Mexico, a stream breached levees near a water treatment plant in Rincon, threatening nearby buildings, according to officials. The NWS said several dams were near full because of intense runoff.
The weather service warned that the combination of saturated ground and additional heavy rain could produce dangerous flash flooding, particularly in areas affected by wildfires. The remnants of Polo are expected to move into eastern Colorado early Wednesday, where forecasters warned that some areas could receive several times their normal September rainfall in a single day. Moist air moving into mountainous terrain could further increase rainfall through a process known as orographic lift.
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