Via the Internet, I learned that Hurricane Norbert made landfall on Mexico’s western Baja California coast. I also learned that another big storm is about to hit Mexico’s Pacific Coast farther south.

Both storms could drift to the northeast, which means “up our way.”

Even while our October weather has mellowed into tranquil days of coolness with plenty of sun? Our normally dry and cooling October can be one of our most delightful months here: it surely has become one of my favorite months.

But October can also become suddenly very wet, because it was during October, 1983 that Southern Arizona suffered from its biggest flooding. Ever!

I didn’t live here in Rio Rico then, but my friends, the Robinsons, did. They’ve told me dramatic stories about how they were stranded on the east side of Rio Rico for almost a week when the Rio Rico Drive bridge over the Santa Cruz River became impassable.

But I did live here in October, 2000, the year when two big storms swept up the Mexican coast to drop 13.25 inches of rain into my rain gauge. (A friend who lives up in the Patagonia Mountains, recorded an amazing 21 inches!)

The deluge that fell famously washed out a big section of Rio Rico’s South River Road when the Santa Cruz River ran 10-foot deep. The river also spread out to flood the valley below my home with a lake of at least three football fields' wide.

The river’s flow was so fierce that it carved out a new channel to the south of the Palo Parado Crossing. The flow also ripped out and tossed about some juvenile willow and cottonwood trees as if they were toothpicks.

Meanwhile, here's a little known fact: historically and statistically, October ranks #4 in the total amount of our monthly rainfall.

(If you’re curious, August is our wettest month.)

But statistics can deceive. And even lie, and October’s high rank of #4 in rainfall might the biggest lie of all.

That’s because October's historical rainfall is often clouded by heavy rainstorms that arrive - every half-decade or so, it seems - up from the south of the border to dump huge amounts of rain here over a few days.

It seems ironic that our normally pleasantly cool, and usually dry and sunny month of October could be one of our months to be placed on "high alert."

Which might suggest that we could be in for “Another October Surprise?”

(Or maybe not, because what this confessed "weather nut" keeps learning about weather forecasting is that it still remains an un-exact "science.")