The National Weather Service issued a San Juan Mountains winter storm warning and a flood watch on Sunday as the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs was forecast to crest at 19.71 feet. A separate flood warning covered the river in Pagosa Springs until Monday evening, with mandatory evacuations already in place in flood-prone areas.
Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County
The river’s expected peak was more than 4 feet higher than the floods that devastated the region 10 days earlier, and roughly 2 feet above the record 17.8 feet reached during an October 1911 flood. Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office officials said that flood wiped out most of what existed as the town of Pagosa at that time.
Mandatory evacuations were in effect Sunday morning for Archuleta County residents in low-lying and flood-prone areas along the Rio Blanco, Navajo, Piedra and San Juan rivers. They also covered downtown Pagosa Springs and residents along Stollsteimer Creek adjacent to U.S. 160.
Rio Grande and Mineral counties
Pre-evacuation orders were in effect Sunday for residents in Rio Grande and Mineral counties along the South Fork of the Rio Grande River, including Del Norte, Monte Vista and South Fork. The South Fork of the Rio Grande River was forecast to rise to 9.7 feet near South Fork by 11 p.m. Sunday and 10.4 feet near Monte Vista by 5 a.m. Monday.
In Conejos County, mandatory evacuations were ordered Sunday morning from Platoro to Mogote in the Conejos River Canyon, while the rest of the county remained on pre-evacuation notice. The Conejos River near Mogote was expected to reach 8 feet by 5 a.m. Monday, a level NOAA river gauges described as major flooding.
San Juan Mountains through Tuesday
The National Weather Service said the flood watch included Alamosa, Creede, Del Norte, Durango, Mancos, Monte Vista, Pagosa Springs and South Fork, and would remain in effect through Tuesday. Forecasters called the flooding a particularly dangerous situation as heavy rain was expected to turn to snow in the San Juan Mountains’ higher elevations, especially above 10,000 feet.
That left crews and residents facing a second hard hit while recovery from severe flooding less than two weeks earlier was still underway. Archuleta County had already suffered damage to more than 500 homes and 150 miles of road in the earlier flood, and the new forecast pointed to another crest near the level that once reshaped Pagosa Springs itself.
