Rain ruins this year’s chances at record for dry weather

Friday, Feb. 11, 2000 | 10:43 a.m.

Thunderclaps about 8 p.m. Thursday brought an end to 140 days without rain.

The National Weather Service recorded 0.05 of an inch at McCarran International Airport by midnight. Las Vegas has not measured rain since Sept. 22 when 0.25 of an inch fell.

The record for the longest period without rain is 150 days in 1959.

The western side of the valley received 0.1 of an inch of rain from the storm that dumped snow on Mount Charleston.

The thunderstorm moved across the Las Vegas Valley at 30 mph, dropping the temperature 10 degrees to 57 degrees in less than an hour.

It hadn't rained in a long, long time in the Las Vegas Valley.

At least in any significant amount. The valley hadn't seen significant rainfall since early September, according to record keepers at the National Weather Service's offices in Las Vegas. The service began tracking rainfall amounts for this arid region in 1937.

Before Thursday night's rain, the dry stretch was 140 days without receiving more than .001 an inch of rain at any one time, weather service meteorologist Andy Gorelow said.

If the region had made it through Feb. 20 without significant rain, it would have been a new record.

The lack of rainfall would be a disaster almost anywhere else in the country. But for Southern Nevada, it is barely a bump in the road.

"There's no cause for concern now," Gorelow said. "This is normally a dry area. We're not talking drought."

Rich Emde, owner of Sunset Sprinkler and Design, agreed.

Nearly all of the valley's "rain" comes from sprinkler systems such as the ones Emde designs and installs.

"Rain water doesn't really help us firsthand," Emde said. "We like to get rain, it feels good, but it's not so important."

The water that fills Lake Mead comes from the snow-covered mountains to the north of Las Vegas, especially in upstate Nevada and Utah, he said.

"When those guys go dry, then we start hurting," he said. "It could rain once a month here, and it wouldn't help that much. If it rained three days a week here, that would be a different story."

Still, the winter is usually a wet time for the valley. January is historically the second wettest month of the year in the valley, with an average of a half-inch of rain. February isn't far behind, averaging more than 0.4 inch.

The average for the year is a little over 4 inches.

Gorelow said the valley hasn't received the usual winter allotment of rain because of several factors, among them the presence of La Nina, or warmer water in the Southeast Pacific, which has helped steer most of the moisture farther north than usual.

Now that it has rained, the experts say -- watch out. Long dry spells followed by rain make the streets and highways of the region treacherous.

The roads will be "very slick," warned Metro Police Traffic Division Lt. John Thornton. The streets in the valley are constructed with a higher oil content than in other regions.

That helps the streets stay together better in the summer heat, but that oil has a tendency to rise to the surface when the streets are wet, he said.

"It makes it really bad," Thornton said.

Thursday night's rain was no exception. An unusually high number of fender-benders were reported.

In those conditions, motorists need to slow down, provide more room between cars and take turns carefully, he said.

Rather than dry weather, the real threat for the Las Vegas area has been flooding from too much rain. Southern Nevada suffered through severe flooding that caused $20 million worth of damage last July, when some areas received more than 3 inches of rain.

And that was just a fraction of what could happen -- in January 1941, Las Vegas was pelted with almost 11 inches of rain in the month.

The area might get another taste of measurable precipitation Saturday, Gorelow said, when a front moves through the valley.

Sun reporter Mary Manning contributed to this story.