Las Vegas basking in balmy weather

By Dave Toplikar

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 | 4:57 a.m.

Las Vegas is having weather that's the envy of much of the country this week — mostly sunny skies and temperatures topping out in the low to mid 60s.

A ridge of high pressure that provided the area with sunny skies and warm temperatures on Tuesday will flatten out, according to the National Weather Service.

That will open the door for a moisture plume over the Pacific Ocean to spread inland through Friday, bringing considerable cloudiness to the area, the weather service said. However, the greatest chance of showers will be mainly along and north of Highway 50 tonight through Friday, forecasters said.

Otherwise, dry and mild weather will persist into early next week, they said.

Afternoon high temperatures will come within striking distance of reaching the records highs for Las Vegas of 70 degrees on Monday and 72 degrees Tuesday, they said.

At 4:56 a.m. today, the temperature at McCarran International Airport was 44 degrees. The normal low for today's date is 37 degrees. The record low was 23 degrees, set in 1978 and 1953.

Around the valley just before 5 a.m., temperatures were 40 degrees at North Las Vegas Airport, 38 degrees at Nellis Air Force Base and 38 degrees at Henderson Executive Airport.

Temperatures in the valley were to rise today to 53 degrees by 9 a.m., to 60 degrees by noon and reach a high of 63 degrees by 2 p.m., forecasters said. The normal high for today's date is 58 degrees and the record high was 77 degrees, set in 1939 and 1938.

Temperatures are expected to drop to 57 degrees by 6 p.m., to 53 degrees by 9 p.m. and to 49 degrees by midnight, forecasters said.

Thursday's morning low will be 45 degrees and Thursday's high will climb to 64 degrees, they said.