Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2003 | 9:41 a.m.
Clouds are expected in the Las Vegas Valley tonight and Thursday as a winter storm system brings wet, colder weather to the Southwest.
A strong storm that formed off the coast of California Tuesday was expected to bring enough cold air to Southern Nevada by Thursday to drop temperatures by 10 degrees into next week.
Daytime highs are forecast to hover around 50 degrees and lows will drop into the low 30s.
In addition to rain in the valley, snow levels are expected to drop to 3,500 feet -- the elevation of the Red Rock Canyon Visitors Center and some Summerlin neighborhoods -- by Thursday night.
The first wave of rain sprinkled the valley Tuesday night.
Rain wet Las Vegas streets until around midnight Tuesday, leaving fractions of an inch of water in gauges maintained by the Clark County Regional Flood Control District.
The Weather Service reported 0.02 of an inch at McCarran International Airport, the official site for recording the valley's weather.
That brings the total rainfall for December to 0.39 of an inch. With storms expected on Christmas Day and night and early next week, this month could become one of the top 10 Decembers for measurable rain.
So far the Las Vegas Valley has recorded 6.29 inches this year.
"Las Vegas has actually had a very wet year," climatologist Jim Ashby of the Western Regional Climate Center said in an e-mail message. "It has been the second wettest in the past 11 years."
The total for 1992, the record-holder so far, measured 9.88 inches.
Over the past 30 years the normal rainfall in Las Vegas measures 4.49 inches annually, Ashby said.
Does all of this rainfall this year break the current five-year drought? Not with the annual average rainfall, Ashby said, "which means Las Vegas is really in a perpetual drought."
Forecasters in the National Climate Center predicted this week that this winter will be warmer and drier in the Southwest, continuing the drought.
In order to reverse the drought, heavier than normal snowpacks in the Rocky Mountains will be needed through the end of 2010.
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