Polo’s Remnants Gave Amarillo and Albuquerque Their Wettest September on Record — and Flooded the Hill Country
The forecast verified. Amarillo finished September with 6.49 inches — its wettest ever, beating a 1985 mark by nearly a third — while the Hill Country took 7 to 8 inches on October 1–2.
The remnants of Hurricane Polo, wrung out by a plunging jet stream, closed out September and opened October with record rain across the Southwest and Plains. Amarillo finished the month with 6.49 inches and Albuquerque with 4.49 inches — each the wettest September on record at its gauge in our 1970–2026 NOAA archive. Amarillo’s total broke a mark that had stood since 1985 (4.96 inches) by 31 percent. On October 1–2, the heaviest rain shifted into the Texas Hill Country, where NWS and local reports put 7 to 8 inches around Junction and about 5 inches at Mason; downtown Austin measured 1.10 inches.
The danger was never the hourly rate alone — it was where the rain fell. Albuquerque, Amarillo and El Paso had just logged some of their wettest Septembers on record, so the final rounds landed on ground already near saturation and ran straight into arroyos and low-water crossings. The same moisture plume then rode the jet stream into the Plains, where weather.com reported Lincoln, Nebraska took 6.15 inches on September 30 — its wettest day since 1887.
Two cities set their wettest September on record
Once the complete month was in, we re-ran each city’s full daily record from our NOAA archive and ranked September 2026 against every other September back to 1970. Two gauges set all-time records:
- Amarillo finished at 6.49 inches — the wettest September in its record, nearly four times its 1.69-inch normal and 31 percent above the old mark of 4.96 inches set in 1985. NWS Amarillo had warned of a “high-end rain event” for the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles; it verified.
- Albuquerque ended at 4.49 inches — also a wettest-September record, edging past 2013’s 3.97 inches, against a 1.15-inch normal. NWS Albuquerque had called the final plume a “near-record to record surge of moisture” with a “moderate to high risk of flash flooding.”
- El Paso took 4.22 inches, its fifth-wettest September on record and nearly triple its 1.52-inch normal. The local office had been blunt going in: “heavy rainfall last week has saturated soils.”
This is the same tropical-moisture engine that drives the Arizona monsoon, stretched into late September and pointed at higher terrain. On ground that saturated, the observed rates of 1 to 3 inches per hour had nowhere to go but downhill.
Complete September, city by city — ranked against the record
Here is each city’s finalized September 2026 total next to its 1991–2020 normal and where the month ranks in the full record. Read it top to bottom: the New Mexico and Panhandle cities ran their wettest Septembers ever, while the parched central-Texas cities (Austin 0.47 inches, Dallas–Fort Worth a flat 0.00) had baked, water-shedding ground when the Hill Country rounds hit. Both ends were flash-flood setups.
| City | Sept 2026 | Normal (Sept) | Where it ranks | Wettest day on record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amarillo, TXrecord | 6.49 in | 1.69 in | Wettest September on record — shattered the old mark of 4.96 in (1985) by 31% | 5.74 in (Jul 7, 2010) |
| Albuquerque, NMrecord | 4.49 in | 1.15 in | Wettest September on record — edged past 3.97 in (2013) | 1.92 in (Apr 3, 2004) |
| El Paso, TX | 4.22 in | 1.52 in | 5th-wettest September on record (behind 1974, 1982, 2006, 2014) | 2.84 in (Aug 1, 2006) |
| Lubbock, TX | 3.16 in | 2.55 in | Above normal; soils primed before the remnants arrived | 7.46 in (Sep 11, 2008) |
| Phoenix, AZ | 0.98 in | 0.57 in | Above normal — the plume’s western edge clipped the Valley | 3.30 in (Sep 8, 2014) |
| Tucson, AZ | 0.78 in | 1.32 in | Below normal before the event; heaviest Southwest axis stayed east | 2.96 in (Oct 1, 1983) |
| Midland–Odessa, TX | 0.79 in | 1.66 in | Dry month; caliche ground sheds water fast even at modest totals | 4.66 in (Sep 28, 2012) |
| San Angelo, TX | 0.56 in | 2.51 in | Well below normal; directly downstream of the Concho | 6.24 in (Sep 9, 1980) |
| Austin, TX | 0.47 in | 3.45 in | Near-bottom — a bone-dry September, hard water-shedding ground | 12.49 in (Oct 30, 2015) |
| San Antonio, TX | 0.42 in | 3.88 in | Near-bottom; wettest day ever came in the deadly Oct 1998 flood | 11.26 in (Oct 17, 1998) |
| Oklahoma City, OK | 0.22 in | 3.72 in | One of the driest Septembers on record — baked, not soaked | 7.62 in (Jun 14, 2010) |
| Dallas–Fort Worth, TX | 0.00 in | 3.10 in | Driest possible September — zero measurable rain all month | 5.85 in (Sep 21, 2018) |
September 2026 totals, normals and record rankings are single-station figures from the primary airport gauge in each city, recomputed October 3, 2026 from NOAA GHCN-Daily (1970–2026), excluding QC-flagged days. Localized storm maxima can run higher than the official gauge. Observed Oct 1–2 storm totals are attributed to NWS and weather.com in the text; gauge data for those dates was not yet in the archive at publication.
Central Texas has done exactly this before — in October
The Hill Country floods in the fall for a specific reason: dying eastern-Pacific tropical systems throw a river of moisture into a stalled front over the Balcones Escarpment, where the terrain wrings it out over creeks that rise in minutes. That is the Polo setup, and it has a body count.
On October 17–18, 1998, that pattern dropped up to 22 inches on the San Antonio–Austin corridor and killed 31 people, most of them swept from vehicles along the Guadalupe River. San Antonio’s wettest day in our entire record — 11.26 inches — is still that date. Kerr, Comal and Kendall counties, in the same Hill Country flash-flood corridor that 1998 tore through, are all inside this week’s Flood Watch. Austin’s own wettest day ever, 12.49 inches, was likewise an October event, on Halloween 2015.
None of this week’s forecast totals reach those marks. The point is the opposite: it doesn’t take a record to be deadly here. For the longer view, see our ranking of the worst floods in US history and how Texas fares in a century of tropical systems.
It wasn’t only a Southwest story — the Plains took a soaking too
The same moisture rode the jet stream northeast into the Plains. weather.com reported that more than a dozen stations across southeast Nebraska logged 6 to 8 inches, with Lincoln picking up 6.15 inches on September 30 — described as its wettest day since 1887 — and that atmospheric moisture topped or neared late-September records from Texas to South Dakota and northern Illinois. In our own archive, Lincoln’s September 2026 total reached 5.35 inches through the 29th, before that record September-30 day even landed.
Oklahoma City was the mirror image of Amarillo here — one of its driest Septembers on record (0.22 inches against a 3.72-inch normal), and Dallas–Fort Worth logged a flat 0.00. On ground that baked, even a couple of inches produces its own flash-flood problem, just from the opposite starting point.
Check your own total against the record
The number that mattered where you live is your own. Look up what your city has done before with our weather-history lookup — type any past date and location to see the daily rainfall on record — or browse the ranked rainiest cities in America and the Texas state records. Caught a storm total that beats your gauge’s record? Tell us what your meter read — that’s the kind of reading we fold into these recaps.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much rain did Hurricane Polo’s remnants drop on Texas and the Southwest?
Between September 25 and October 2, 2026, the remnants delivered record September totals to the Southwest — 6.49 inches in Amarillo and 4.49 inches in Albuquerque, each a wettest-September record in our 1970–2026 NOAA archive. The Texas Hill Country took the heaviest observed amounts on October 1–2: 7 to 8 inches around Junction and roughly 5 inches at Mason, per NWS and local reports, with downtown Austin measuring 1.10 inches.
Did this event break rainfall records?
On a monthly basis, yes. Amarillo’s 6.49 inches and Albuquerque’s 4.49 inches are each the wettest September on record at those gauges — Amarillo broke its old mark (4.96 inches, 1985) by 31 percent. No single-day record fell in Central Texas: the Hill Country’s 7–8 inches stayed below San Antonio’s 11.26-inch and Austin’s 12.49-inch all-time daily records, both set in past October floods.
Why was flooding so dangerous when September was already wet?
Saturated soil has little capacity left to absorb new rain, so almost all of it becomes runoff that funnels into creeks and low-water crossings within minutes. Albuquerque and Amarillo had just finished their wettest September on record before Polo’s moisture arrived, so the ground across New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle was already near its limit when the final rounds came through.
Has Central Texas flooded like this in October before?
Yes, and it is the region’s signature disaster. On October 17–18, 1998, decaying Pacific tropical moisture and a stalled front dropped up to 22 inches on the San Antonio–Austin corridor, killing 31 people along the Guadalupe River. San Antonio’s wettest day on record, 11.26 inches, is still that date. Austin’s wettest day ever, 12.49 inches, was also an October event, in 2015.
Did the rain reach beyond the Southwest?
Yes. The same moisture rode the jet stream into the Plains. weather.com reported Lincoln, Nebraska picked up 6.15 inches on September 30 — its wettest day since 1887 — and more than a dozen stations across southeast Nebraska logged 6 to 8 inches. Atmospheric moisture topped or neared late-September records from Texas to South Dakota and northern Illinois.
Sources & Method
Complete September 2026 totals, 1991–2020 normals and wettest-September rankings were recomputed on October 3, 2026 from the site’s Neon copy of NOAA’s GHCN-Daily dataset, using the primary airport gauge in each city and excluding readings flagged in NOAA’s quality-control file. Records span 1970 to present.
Observed Oct 1–2 storm totals (Hill Country 7–8 in at Junction, ~5 in at Mason, 1.10 in in downtown Austin; Lincoln, NE 6.15 in; southeast Nebraska 6–8 in) and the record-rain framing are from the National Weather Service, weather.com (Oct 2, 2026), and the Austin American-Statesman. The October 1998 flood figures are from the NWS South-Central Texas event summary. This page was first published September 30, 2026 in forecast tense and updated October 3 with observed totals.