Another round of rain in the Valley sets off flash flood warnings Thursday

PHOENIX – A forecast of hard, scattered rain in metro Phoenix has prompted flash flood warnings for Thursday morning.

The National Weather Service in Phoenix issued a flash flood warning for Maricopa County scheduled to end at 9:15 a.m., another for the Cave Creek-Carefree area set to expire at 10 a.m. and a third for the West Valley set to end at 11 a.m.

The weather bureau said the west suburbs of Glendale, Peoria, Surprise and the Deer Valley Airport were among the areas likely be under threat of flash flooding. To the east, Scottsdale and Fountain Hills are probably going to get walloped.

The agency also said water was being released from a dam into a Salt River channel that is usually dry. A flood warning said releases from a dam floodgate started Thursday morning and that the warning would remain in effect until late afternoon.

The warning said the releases would affect gravel extraction operations and the unbridged McKellips Road crossing in the river river bottom.

The monsoon activity was expected to stick around.

“A very humid air mass is in place right now, so we’re really going to have chances for showers and thunderstorms almost at any point through the weekend into early next week,” Paul Iniguez, a meteorologist with the weather service in Phoenix told KTAR News 92.3 FM early Thursday.

“We’re not anticipating continuous rain through that time but there’s going to be that potential for these showers and thunderstorms to be developing.”

Some heavy rain has fallen across northeast and east portions of the Phoenix area this morning. Chances for showers & storms remain in the forecast through the next several days. #azwx https://t.co/U0wzPxGdwk pic.twitter.com/c1jntaFAZV

— NWS Phoenix (@NWSPhoenix) August 12, 2021

Rain hit parts of the Valley morning and night on Wednesday. A daytime storm unloaded on the far East Valley, Scottsdale and Fountain Hills; in the evening, rain hit Scottsdale and Fountain Hills again, and added Tempe and Mesa.

Central Phoenix was pelted with 0.63 inches of rain in about an hour, according to the Flood Control District of Maricopa County.

“These showers and thurderstorms are going to be really efficient at wringing that moisture out [and] get some really heavy rains really quickly,” Iniguez said.

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Jim Cross and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Follow @KTAR923