Wet weather will continue, but no records have been set

Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2001 | 10:59 a.m.

Southern Nevada has received almost as much rain since January as it does in a six-month period, but no records were broken during Monday's storm.

As of midnight Monday the National Weather Service gauge at McCarran International Airport picked up 0.57 of an inch, meteorologist Charlie Schlott said today. From the time the rain started Sunday, the Las Vegas Valley had 0.90 of an inch.

The record rainfall for Feb. 26 occurred in 1993, when a winter storm dumped 1.3 inches of rain on the valley.

However, the current total for the year to date -- 1.98 inches -- may change overnight, when more rain and mountain snows are expected, Schlott said. Up to a quarter-inch of rain is expected by 4 a.m. Wednesday.

About 4.25 inches of precipitation normally falls in Southern Nevada each year.

The rain-slicked roads caused traffic tie-ups at Sahara Avenue and Interstate 15, when a tractor-trailer dumped its load of pipes in the northbound lanes. Another tractor-trailer accident on I-15 near Overton, about 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas, closed the interstate southbound briefly.

Numerous fender-benders slowed traffic to a crawl in the urban area.

University Medical Center, which normally has three to six patients in its Trauma Center per day, treated 30 patients, most arriving from accidents on rain-slicked roads between midnight and noon on Monday, UMC spokesman Rick Plummer said.