Heavy rains on Wednesday wreaked havoc across parts of central Mexico, flooding streets in Puebla and México state, delaying operations at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) and causing rush-hour chaos in the nation’s capital on Thursday morning.
Thirteen of Mexico City’s 16 boroughs were on alert as a result of the torrential downpour, but the soggy metropolis won’t have much time to dry out as more rainstorms are in the forecast. The city’s civil protection agency issued a weather advisory telling the public to expect warm, cloudy weather and lightning storms in the evening on Thursday, as part of Tropical Wave No. 11.
Espero saliste de casa con paraguas 🌂 porque este jueves se esperan #tormentas eléctricas ⛈️ y posibles #granizadas 🧊 en varias regiones de #México 😲
Nuestro meteorólogo @ClimaYucatan te da la predicción completa ⏬https://t.co/NHkWD4df36 pic.twitter.com/XL3QzLgy5o
— Meteored.mx (@meteoredmx) July 18, 2024
Heavy rains are predicted throughout most of Mexico for Thursday, Friday and Saturday, as this animated rain accumulation predictive map shows. (Meteored/X)
The rain affected operations at the AICM, causing delays to departing flights after access roads — including Boulevard Aereo Puerto and the Circuito Interior — were flooded. The deep water left commuters stranded for more than three hours, according to the newspaper El Universal.
Airport traffic control focused on facilitating arrivals over departures as the weather worsened, until Runway 5 was deemed too unsafe to use. When the rain and wind reduced visibility to a dangerous level, at least six flights were diverted to nearby airfields.
Wednesday afternoon’s storms also flooded streets in the city of Puebla and the eastern regions of México state.
Puebla was particularly hard-hit as high winds knocked down trees, one of which crushed an automobile. No injuries were reported, but flooding in the northern part of the city caused damage at the Plaza Comercial San Pedro.
In downtown Puebla, another shopping plaza, La Herencia 811, was inundated. The city was still surveying the damage late into the night and several roads were still underwater on Thursday morning, according to digital news outlet Infobae.
Commuters were stranded in eastern México state when long stretches of the Mexico City-Puebla highway were flooded, shutting down traffic completely. The Mexico City-Texcoco highway was also affected, with traffic slowing to a crawl in several sections.
Public transport was impacted as several stations east of the capital were inaccessible on Wednesday. Line 4 of the capital’s Metro system was shut down briefly after a tree fell across the tracks.
On the positive side, the hydraulic system that supplies water to Mexico City received an influx of much-needed rain. As of July 15, the three main dams that feed the Cutzamala system had risen by 1.3% in one week, according to the National Water Commission (Conagua).
The dams had been dangerously low before the rainy season arrived and were still only at 29.1% of capacity on July 15, reported the newspaper Milenio.
With reports from El Universal, El Financiero, El Sol de Toluca, Infobae and Milenio
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