Thursday, April 29, 2010 | 6:05 a.m.
Mobile billboard driver Tim Van Name struggles to stay upright in high winds Wednesday as a tow truck driver, left, looks over his toppled billboard on Las Vegas Boulevard South, near Mandalay Bay. Name said he was trying to make it back to the storage yard when the wind blew over the billboard towed behind a pickup truck.
Sun weather coverage
Skies will be cloudy, afternoon temperatures take a nosedive and there's a chance for isolated showers today in Las Vegas, according to the National Weather Service.
A cold low pressure system that brought strong winds Wednesday to the region will finally settle over the area today, leading to cooler, showery weather and generally less wind, the weather service said.
Today's afternoon high will climb to only 63 degrees -- nearly 20 degrees below normal, forecasters said.
Winds this morning are expected to be from the northwest around 10 to 15 mph and might increase slightly behind the front into the 10- to 20-mph range, gusting to 30 mph, forecasters said. On Wednesday, winds were coming in from the southwest as high as 45 mph at times, with the highest gusts recorded at 63 mph at McCarran International Airport.
A few showers over higher terrain are expected mainly to the west of Las Vegas, they said. Snow is possible at elevations of 4,000 to 5,000 feet, but no accumulations are expected, forecasters said.
The low pressure system will slowly head into southern Arizona Friday, then lift east Saturday, allowing for a gradual warming trend over the weekend, with afternoon highs in the low 70s Saturday, the upper 70s Sunday and back to the 80s on Monday, forecasters said.
At 5:56 a.m. today, the temperature at McCarran International Airport was 52 degrees. The normal low for today's date is 58 degrees. The record low was 32 degrees, set in 1953.
Around the valley just before 6 a.m., temperatures were 51 degrees at North Las Vegas Airport, 54 degrees at Nellis Air Force Base and 50 degrees at Henderson Executive Airport.
Temperatures in the valley were to rise today to 57 degrees by 9 a.m., to 60 degrees by noon and reach a high of 63 degrees by 4 p.m., forecasters said. The normal high for today's date is 82 degrees and the record high was 98 degrees, set in 2007.
Temperatures are expected to drop to 62 degrees by 6 p.m., to 58 degrees by 9 p.m. and to 54 degrees by midnight, forecasters said.
Friday's morning low will be 51 degrees and Saturday's high will climb to 67 degrees, they said.
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