Record flooding and rainfall have inundated parts of the Desert Southwest and Florida in recent days, and that could be a prelude to a very wet winter from a super El Niño.

If you've been following our coverage over the last several days, you may have noticed flooding has dominated the active weather across the U.S.

And it's not just in one part of the country.

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We've seen damaging flooding from Arizona to Florida's Atlantic coast, as well as some weird very localized flash floods.

Let's start by recapping the notables from each area, explaining why they happened, then see if more of this is ahead.

Southwest swamped — again

The latest bout of heavy rain hammered much of the Desert Southwest mainly on Nov. 1.

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Parts of Arizona and Colorado were hardest hit, with some rainfall totals of 5 to 7 inches, more than double their average November precipitation in just one day.

This triggered another round of destructive flash flooding, which washed out roads, flooded some homes, lead to evacuations and prompted water rescues.

Fifteen river gauges set new all-time flood crest records from this latest round in Arizona, southern Colorado and western New Mexico.

Eight other locations — including stretches of the San Juan River at both Farmington and Shiprock, New Mexico — measured river crests higher than their previous record for the second time in about 10 days, following the first round of flooding from Oct. 23-24.

While not an all-time record, the San Juan River gauge at Pagosa Springs, Colorado, measured its two highest crests on Oct. 23, then on Nov. 1 since its 1911 record flood.

(PHOTOS: Extreme flooding swamps the Southwest)

This latest round of flooding rain in the Southwest was courtesy of a deep plume of moisture known as an atmospheric river, which pumped up moisture to record levels for this time of year.

Florida flooded

Just days after king tides set non-hurricane flood records in parts of Florida, locally torrential rain soaked parts of the Sunshine State as the calendar turned to November.

On Nov. 1, flooding trapped vehicles and closed roads in Panama City and entered some homes in Palm Beach Gardens. Rain also soaked two NFL games in Miami and Tampa.

The following day, torrential rain triggered rare flash flood emergencies issued by the National Weather Service for parts of Brevard County, where up to 24 inches of rain was reported, swamping roads and stalling vehicles.

Nov. 2 was the wettest day in 89 years in Melbourne, where 11.51 inches was recorded. Their previous record — 10.23 inches — was during Hurricane Irma in 2017.

This flooding was caused by a stagnant combination of slow-moving low pressure over the eastern Gulf and high pressure off the Eastern Seaboard, channeling deep tropical moisture into Florida.

More flooding

One other weird, highly localized extreme rainfall happened in southern Mississippi on Halloween.

An estimated 16 to 24 inches of rain inundated parts of Pearl River County, about 60 miles north-northeast of New Orleans late on Oct. 31.

This torrential rain triggered flooding up to waist-deep in a home near the town of Crossroads, prompted at least one high wate rescue and washed out a section of one road.

Earlier that evening, rainfall up to 4 inches per hour flooded intersections and trapped vehicles in the west New Orleans suburbs of Kenner and Metairie. That's roughly as much rain in an hour as New Orleans averages in an entire month of November.

El Niño winter preview?

Sometimes in early fall, stagnant weather patterns can linger over parts of the Southeast, such as the one that triggered the prolific Florida flash flooding.

But what we've seen recently in the Southwest and Southeast could be repeated at times through the winter and spring.

That's largely because of the soon to be record-strong El Niño.

(COMPLETE COVERAGE: Super El Niño 2026-27)

One of El Niño signature "footprints" on the weather pattern is a wetter South, from California and the Desert Southwest to Florida and the Southeast.

That's exactly what our latest winter outlook is expecting.

While that pattern could certainly quench any shorter-term drought over the southern tier of the U.S., it could also lead to more rounds of flooding from the turbocharged southern jet stream.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.