Hurricane Rosa targets Southwest, heavy rainfall expected
MEXICO CITY — Hurricane Rosa was on a track Sunday to drench northwest Mexico and parts of the U.S. Southwest, prompting tropical storm warnings for the Baja California coast and flash-flood watches for parts of four U.S. states.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Rosa should be at tropical storm force when it hits the Baja California Peninsula and Sonora state Monday with flooding rains.
It’s then expected to move quickly northwestward as it weakens, bringing 2 to 4 inches of rain to the Mogollon Rim of Arizona and 1 to 2 inches to the rest of the desert Southwest, Central Rockies and Great Basin. Some isolated areas might be more.
Rosa had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph Sunday afternoon and was centered about 260 miles southwest of Punta Eugenia in Mexico. It was heading north-northeast at 12 mph.
The National Weather Service announced flash flood watches through Wednesday for areas including southern Nevada, southeastern California, southwestern and central Utah and the western two-thirds of Arizona.
Forecasts call for heavy rainfall in the watch areas, which include Las Vegas, Phoenix and Salt Lake City, with possible flooding in slot canyons and normally dry washes and a potential for landslides and debris flows from recent wildfire burn scars.
