Storms roll through Vegas, heat warning canceled

By Dave Toplikar (contact)

Published Sunday, July 19, 2009 | 1:47 a.m.

Updated Sunday, July 19, 2009 | 9:36 a.m.

Stephen R. Sylvanie

Lightning cascades to the ground behind a Madeira Canyon neighborhood as a series of storms rumbled through the Las Vegas Valley late Saturday night.

It will still be brutally hot today - 110 degrees is expected.

But the National Weather Service has called off its excessive heat warning for the weekend, thanks to scattered storms rolling through the Mojave Desert.

Isolated thunderstorms can be expected this afternoon and evening across the Las Vegas Valley, with scattered thunderstorms in the mountains, the weather service said. The chance for rain is 20 percent today through Monday night.

The main threats posed by the storms are lightning and high winds — with gusts of more than 40 mph — hail, heavy downpours and localized flash flooding, forecasters said.

Although the temperatures will hit 110 degrees today, which is well above the normal level of 105 degrees, considerable cloud cover and low-level moisture will keep temperatures below the 112-degree mark, which triggers an excessive heat warning.

The record for the highest temperature recorded at McCarran International Airport was 117 degrees on today's date in 2005.

The moist and unstable air mass is expected to stay in place Monday through Saturday, allowing for at least a slight chance of thunderstorms, especially in the higher elevations, the weather service said.

Overnight, McCarran recorded 0.03 of an inch of rain, which was the first measurable rain for July. The normal amounts by this time of the month is 0.18 of an inch. Las Vegas is 1.52 inches below normal rainfall for the year.

As storms blew through Saturday afternoon, McCarran reported gusts up to 37 mph. Saturday's official high was 113 degrees at 1:07 p.m. at McCarran.

Other highs recorded at some of the weather service's automated environmental monitoring stations were 115 degrees at UNLV, 114 at Henderson Executive Airport and 111 at North Las Vegas Airport.

Death Valley's high reached 128 degrees on Saturday at the official weather station at Furnace Creek, located at 194 feet below sea level.