Warm weather nears Las Vegas record

Eric Leake

Monday, Dec. 13, 2004 | 11:01 a.m.

Today was expected to be another unseasonably warm one in the valley, with temperatures well above normal but just missing the record books.

The National Weather Service forecast a high today of 67 degrees. The average high is 58, and the record, set in 1952, is 70 degrees, said meteorologist Barry Pierce.

The low today was 47 degrees, also warmer than usual.

Temperatures could be even higher, Pierce said, if there were a little wind to stir up things. Pierce blamed a temperature inversion for keeping all the cool air -- and dirty brown haze -- on the valley floor.

With such an inversion, he said, people sometimes head to Mount Charleston to escape the cold and find warmer air.

The mountain peaked at 56 degrees Sunday, only 9 degrees cooler than the valley 5,000 feet below, Pierce said, as warm air rose to the higher elevation and denser, cooler air sat on the floor.

Pierce said Mount Charleston is usually 15 to 18 degrees cooler than the valley.

The higher temperatures kept more snow from falling on the mountain, which draws in thousands of skiers each winter, Craig Baldwin, base operations manager fo the Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard resort at Mount Charleston.

The low this morning at Mount Charleston was 32 degrees, and the ski resort was reporting 32 inches of snow. Baldwin said that depth should hold steady. The resort saw 5 inches of new snow last week.

Meanwhile high-tech snow-making machines are ready in case the new warmth does start to melt the snow, he said.

Either way, Baldwin said, he did not expect the warmer weather to affect the holiday turnout.

"It comes with our region," he said. "It's to be expected."

Pierce credited the unusually warm weather to a high pressure system across the southwest of the country that is expected to last until Wednesday or Thursday, when temperatures are forecasted to drop into the lower 60s.

No rain is expected anytime soon, forecasters said.