Roosevelt's wet weather continues

Staff and Wire Reports

Just three days after Roosevelt County was flooded with rain, the region got another good dousing early Saturday morning.

Portales received .52 of an inch of rain and nearby Cannon Air Force Base measured half an inch Saturday morning.

Portales received 1.2 inches of rain Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, while some people living five miles south of Portales reported more than four inches of rain and water over highways.

Officials with the National Weather Service said if heavy rain is going to fall, it is going to happen in the summer.

“It’s monsoon season ... if it’s going to happen it’s going to be in July or August,” Meteorologist Chuck Jones said.

To the north, Clovis received 2.4 inches of rain and the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning from 1:50 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning. Clovis received the most amount of rain in the state, officials at the National Weather Service said.

The active weather pattern that brought thunderstorms to much of the state over the last few days will continue through the weekend before winding down early next week.

The weather may have been to blame for a power outage in Rio Rancho on Friday night.

Public Service Company of New Mexico spokesman Don Brown said about 23,000 customers in the Rio Rancho area lost power. Workers were able to restore electricity to the customers in about 2 1/2 hours.

Brown said crews examined transmission lines and substations to determine what caused the outage and discovered that a piece of lightning protection equipment at one of the stations malfunctioned. He said crews weren’t immediately sure if lightning actually hit the equipment.

“It will take a couple of days of investigation to figure out what happened,” he said.

The heavy thunderstorms also forced authorities to close a few Albuquerque streets because of standing water, and some flooding was reported. Customers also called in sporadic power outages around Albuquerque, Brown said.

Eastern Cibola County, Sandoval County and Bernalillo County were in the path of the storms Friday. Forecasters said close to an inch of rain fell in the Albuquerque area Friday evening.

In Dona Ana County, the rain had washed mud into the entrance of Columbia Elementary School and onto some streets. Contract workers repacked a berm on the north side of the school to keep the mud and water out.

Some houses in the neighborhood were also flooded.

“This is my shop. I had four inches of water in here,” Armondo Valles said as he pushed water out of the garage and into the yard. “It was just gushing through the wall.”

Afternoon temperatures were significantly cooler Friday across the state with readings in the 60s and 70s in the mountains and a high of 94 degrees in Animas.