Sunny and hot for Las Vegas area

By Dave Toplikar

Sunday, Aug. 7, 2011 | 7:18 a.m.

Sunny skies with near-normal temperatures climbing to around 104 degrees are on the way today for Las Vegas, according to the National Weather Service.

Highs in the Las Vegas Valley are expected to be around 96 degrees on the west side of the valley to around 106 degrees on the east side, the weather service said. Winds will be from the south, gusting to around 30 mph, forecasters said.

A southwest flow of air will prevail across most of the region this week, resulting in a dry weather pattern with near-normal temperatures, the weather service said.

The lower Colorado River Valley and northwest Arizona will se increasing low-level moisture and more humid conditions through Tuesday, forecasters said. This will lead to a slight chance of thunderstorms over parts of southern and eastern Mohave County early this week, they said.

At 6:56 a.m. today, the temperature at McCarran International Airport was 81 degrees. The normal low for today's date is 81 degrees. The record low was 63 degrees, set in 1950.

Around the valley just before 7 a.m., temperatures were 75 degrees at North Las Vegas Airport, 79 degrees at Nellis Air Force Base and 79 degrees at Henderson Executive Airport.

Temperatures at McCarran were to rise today to 87 degrees by 9 a.m., to 99 degrees by noon and reach a high of 104 degrees by 3 p.m., forecasters said. The normal high for today's date is 103 degrees and the record high was 111 degrees, set in 1994, 1981 and 1978.

Temperatures are expected to drop to 102 degrees by 6 p.m., to 95 degrees by 9 p.m. and to 88 degrees by midnight, forecasters said.

Monday's morning low will be 80 degrees and Monday's high will climb to 106 degrees, they said.