Thunderstorms miss valley

Wednesday, July 30, 2003 | 10:52 a.m.

Thunderstorms slid around the mountains surrounding the Las Vegas Valley Tuesday night, pounding Pahrump and Phoenix but leaving Southern Nevada unscathed.

The National Weather Service allowed a flash flood watch to expire at 9 p.m., meteorologist Brian Fuis said.

Humidity above 30 percent made the high temperature of 101 degrees on Tuesday feel hotter. The dew point is the temperature at which water vapor in the air forms dew.

"The atmosphere is juiced," Fuis said of the 36 percent humidity level and 63 degrees Fahrenheit dew point that remained for most of the day and evening.

The humidity is expected to linger today as the temperature climbs to near 100 degrees before dropping back down to the lower 80s.

Phoenix got rain, 56 mph winds and a dust storm about 9 p.m. on Tuesday. "Phoenix got mud showers," Fuis said, after talking to weather forecasters there.

Normal Southwest monsoon flows drag moisture from the Gulf of California north through Mexico and into the Southwest, but this year nothing has been normal.

This summer's strong storms are developing over Colorado and Utah, then pushing through Southern Nevada from the northeast, an unusual direction for this time of year, Fuis said.

The threat of thunderstorms remains in the forecast until late this weekend.

Temperatures could hover in the low to mid-90s Thursday and Friday, but will soon climb into the 100s again.

Next week a warmer, drier weather pattern is expected for the first week of August.

That means daytime highs around 104 degrees and the threat of thunderstorms will disappear.