Thunderstorms bring street flooding to Las Vegas area

By Dave Toplikar

Published Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008 | 6:57 a.m.

Updated Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008 | 5:11 p.m.

Scattered thunderstorms moved into the Las Vegas Valley this afternoon, bringing brief heavy downpours, strong winds and some street flooding.

By 4:20 p.m., the heavy rainfall had ended, but a flash flood warning remained in effect until 6 p.m. for east central Clark County. Runoff from the earlier heavy rain was expected to produce flash flooding, according to the National Weather Service.

One primary area of flooding in Las Vegas about 4:30 p.m. had been along Boulder Highway, with swift water rescues having occurred or in progress at Tropicana, Flamingo and English avenues. Additional flooding and swift water rescues were reported at Eastern and Harmon avenues.

The weather service warns motorists not to drive their vehicles into areas where water covers the roadway. A flash flood warning means that flooding is imminent or occurring.

At 4:59 p.m., a thunderstorm producing very heavy rain was continuing in the vicinity of Meadville and Temple Bar at Lake Mead, the weather service said. That thunderstorm was expected to remain over mainly rural areas.

About 2:52 p.m., the weather service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Central Clark County in southern Nevada, which lasted until 3:45 p.m.

At 3:23 p.m., the weather service reported that Clark County alert gages had measured in excess of 1.5 inches of rainfall in 30 minutes. Flash flooding was reported in Arroyo Grande Boulevard and Wigwam Parkway in Henderson and was expected to become more widespread. Heavy rainfall was expected to continue with an additional 0.5 to 1 inch of rain possible, the weather service said.

The storm first moved into Green Valley shortly before 3 p.m., bringing heavy rains and strong wind gusts, then moved north near UNLV and McCarran International Airport.

At 3:14 p.m., McCarran reported .06 of an inch of rain, with wind gusts of 31 mph, from the storm. The storm cooled down the area by 17 degrees — the temperature dropped from 98 degrees at 2 p.m. to 81 degrees at 3:14 p.m. at McCarran. The temperature had risen back to 84 degrees by 3:56 p.m. after the storm passed through.

Because of the thunderstorms, the Federal Aviation Administrations delayed several outgoing flights from McCarran, ranging from 51 minutes, for departing flights going to Philadelphia, to an hour and 26 minutes for flights going to Boston. Arriving traffic was experiencing delays of 15 minutes or less.

The following rainfall amounts were recorded this afternoon, according to the Regional Flood Control District:

• At a railroad channel in the southeastern part of the valley, with 1.34 of an inch.

• Duck Creek at Eastern Avenue recorded 1.02 of an inch.

• The Las Vegas Wash at Vegas Valley Drive, in northeastern Las Vegas, 0.75 of an inch.

• Sunrise Mountain channel in eastern Las Vegas got 0.16 of an inch.

• A gage north of Kyle Canyon Road, leading to Mount Charleston, recorded 0.12 of an inch.

Tonight's skies will be partly cloudy, with a low around 86 and a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11 p.m.

McCarran International Airport recorded .01 of an inch of rain between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Sun senior reporter Mary Manning contributed to this report.